


Mrs. Cupid

by Anonymous



Series: Stupid Cupid Universe [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Kazakhstan, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, So Married, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-01-12 07:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This time, it's not Oliver's fault. Or, the story of how Felicity's quick thinking in Kazakhstan might stay with them...til death do them part.</p><p> </p><p>  <b>Has been abandoned.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Felicity and Oliver Become the Plot of a Ridiculous Romantic Comedy

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning: This story will not be finished. Read at your own risk.**

Oliver wasn’t used to waking up in a hospital bed. Really, the only time he really had was when he’d had his tonsils removed when he was eight, and in China after they’d pulled him off of the island. Ever since then, he had Diggle and Felicity to patch up his bullet holes and gaping chest wounds in the makeshift infirmary in the Foundry. So when he woke on starched sheets, looking up at fluorescent light rather than the salmon ladder, confusion rolled in.

“It’s okay,” a voice to his left said. “You’re in a hospital, but you’re going to be okay. I mean, well, you weren’t going to be okay, but I sneaked some of your herbs in and the doctors think you’ve made a miraculous recovery, but you’re okay, you really are.”

Felicity’s face moved into view. She was pale and her eyes looked huge because her glasses were gone, but he immediately relaxed a little because she was there and she looked unharmed. He tried to say something, but his throat was dry, so he ended up gesturing a little helplessly.

“What? Oh! Here, they left some water. Do you need help sitting up? I…” Felicity’s hand fluttered for a second before he saw the determination take over. When she helped him adjust the bed and sit up, she remained unsurprisingly gentle. Felicity was always full of surprises, but that was never one of them. She handed him a water cup and refilled it after he drained it.

“Where?” he finally managed to say.

“Kazakhstan, still. We’re in—oh, I can’t pronounce it. I tried, but the nurse laughed at me. Anyway, you’re going to be fine, they just want to keep you one night more, and that’s when I laughed at the nurse because—well, that right there.” She nodded at the fact that he had already swung his legs out of bed. “Guess you’re signing out AMA.”

“Damn right I am,” he said. His legs were shaky when he finally pushed himself to his feet, but he closed his eyes for a second and found his center. Then he took another step and tipped forward.

Felicity caught him, bracing him with her hands on his shoulders. It put their faces close together, but he noticed a much more pressing matter: he could feel every bump and ridge in her hands through the thin fabric of the hospital gown, and there was definitely a ring on a finger she usually left bare. To double-check, he looked down at her left hand. He was pretty sure he wasn’t hallucinating the rather simple wedding ring on her ring finger.

Her wince didn’t just speak volumes, it wrote a cliff-notes series as well. 

“Felicity?” he said.

“I was looking for a way to break that to you gently when you woke up and then you did wake up and it totally slipped my mind, and um, I can explain, I really can.”

“Is there a Kazakh out there I’m going to have to go put the fear of god into?” Oliver asked, and he was surprised by just how much he disliked that idea.

She grimaced. “I can do that myself, thanks, but no, not exactly. You…yeah, let’s sit you down first.”

“I’m fine—”

“By which you mean you’re falling over.” She gave him a solid push back onto the hospital bed. He could have fought her off, but he had learned not to argue with that expression. “Oliver, they weren’t going to let me in here.”

“What?”

“I’m not family. You gave me power of attorney, but they didn’t recognize it, and you were dying, and I had to do something.”

“What does this have to do with anything, Felicity? Who did you marry?”

Felicity pushed her hands through her hair and blew out a breath. “Look down.”

He did, but all he really noticed was that the hospital gown was a great deal shorter than he liked. He shifted the hem a little and something gold glinted on his hand. Again, he had to ascertain that he wasn’t hallucinating. He made sure his voice was measured and calm when he said, “Felicity, why am I wearing a wedding ring?”

“Because I told them I was your wife and then I went, and um, faked our marriage certificate?” The words came out in a rush. “Look, please don’t be mad. It’s not permanent, none of it’s real. I just I had to think of something and I don’t look anything like Thea, so pretending to be her wouldn’t have worked. Are you mad? Is that your mad face? I can’t tell.”

“I’m—I’m not mad.” But it was a lot to process, just like waking up in a hospital bed. The band on his finger felt oddly heavy for being a fake thing. “Where did you get the rings?”

“Hardware store down the street. If your finger turns green and falls off, try not to sue me.”

“No promises.” He rubbed the edge of his thumb over the ring. “It’s not exactly great, but you did what you had to do and you saved my life. Thank you.” 

She rocked back on her heels like that was the last thing she expected to hear. “Oh. You’re welcome.”

For a moment, awkward silence reigned, and he stared at the ring on her finger while rubbing the one on his own.

Felicity cleared her throat. “Well, this is a great and fortuitous start to our fake marriage and all, but want help getting out of here now?”

“Please.”

He stood on his own long enough to pull on the street clothes she picked up for him, but he needed her assistance down the hallway to the front desk. She caught him up on the rest of the team: Diggle had gotten Roy and Sara out of the country already, she had already arranged for a jet to get them back to Starling City, and she would annul their marriage on the plane by destroying the paper trail she had to create.

“I dunno,” he said, wincing a little because it felt like his system had tried to turn itself inside out. Taking the herbs was never pleasant. “It’s actually a bit of a convenience, isn’t it?”

Felicity’s glare was sudden and awe-inspiring. “Oliver,” she said through her teeth, “I will sew you up. I will play at being your wife to save you in a hospital in a city I can’t pronounce. I will be your EA and commit all manners of felonies in the name of justice for you. But if you think I’m going to marry somebody whose idea of a proposal is to say, ‘oh, hey, it’s convenient for us to be married,’ you really, really don’t know much about me.”

“You’re right. That was a bad joke.” It didn’t seem smart to tell her that he was freaking out a little bit, even though the marriage was fake. But he came back from the island knowing he was never going to have a normal life and all of the trappings, so it was _strange_ to have a ring on his finger and a woman claiming to be his wife. “I’m sorry. I do know you better than that.”

She gave him a nod, but he can tell she was still a little upset. He wondered what happened to her glasses.

“Although, you know, you proposed to me,” he said. 

She snorted, and just like that, he knew they were good again. 

It took half an hour of arguing with the doctors before they let him sign the paperwork, and he was almost seeing double when Felicity helped him out of the hospital and to the rental car. He kept his arm around her shoulders. Her hand was clammy around his wrist, but she kept her chin up.

He collapsed gratefully onto the passenger seat. “Are you okay to drive without your glasses?”

“I’ll be fine. You should sleep. You’re looking a little green, but not in a ‘your finger is going to fall off’ kind of way.”

“I’ll sleep on the plane.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am. Say, how far do fake wife duties go, exactly?”

“Oliver, I am _not_ going to consummate our fake marriage with—”

“I was hoping we could stop and you could buy me a coffee, since I can’t seem to find my wallet,” Oliver said, and he had the pleasure to see Felicity go that bright, stutter-y red that he shouldn’t enjoy as much as he did. But he was kind of a sadist, and it was cute. Not that he was ever telling her that.

“R-right,” she said. “Coffee. I can make that happen.”

They didn’t remove the wedding rings until they reached the plane, where he kept his promise and slept. He woke to find Felicity curled up on the chair next to his, her head resting on his shoulder and her fingers still on her keyboard, though the machine was in sleep mode. She slept like the dead, so he didn’t feel bad when his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket. “What’s up, Dig?”

“Oliver, do you have access to the internet?”

“What? Why?”

“You might want to check TMZ.”

Oliver’s stomach sank. Ending up on TMZ was only something he wanted to do when he was being Oliver Queen, Billionaire Playboy and he hadn’t been that in a while because the board didn’t like it. So if he was a feature on TMZ, it could potentially have something to do with the other side of his double-life, which was never, never good. He reached over and took Felicity’s laptop (she stirred and muttered something in her sleep) and accessing the account she set up for him. He turned to the TMZ homepage and wasn’t just his stomach sinking.

“How on earth—we were in Kazakhstan,” he said, staring in disbelief at the picture on the front page. “How did they get this?”

“Some enterprising kid with a camera phone. How do you think? Anything you want to fill me in on? Did you two manage to find a drive-in chapel on the way to the hospital or something?”

Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose. The picture in front of him was worth more than a thousand words. Felicity was helping him out of the hospital, her left hand wrapped around his left wrist so that their matching wedding bands were in plain sight. “They wouldn’t let Felicity in to see me. She took matters into her own hands.”

“And married you?”

“It’s not real.”

“Tell that to the press. They’re having a field day. It’s already on the local news. It’s only a matter of time before Thea and your mother find out.”

Honestly, he’d rather deal with Queen Consolidated having a total meltdown than to see Felicity’s name dragged through the mud, as it inevitably would be if she were publicly connected to him. He knew about all of the rumors that circulate through the office, and it never passed his notice the way the corners of her mouth dipped whenever she heard about them. This was really the last thing he wanted. “Thoughts on how to get out of this?”

“Find an heiress, get caught cheating, big break-up? No, that won’t work, as you and Felicity need to be on good terms. Sara and I’ll brainstorm it out, we’ll figure something out. How’s she handling it? I haven’t heard any hyperventilating.”

“She,” Oliver said, “is sleeping. And I’m going to keep letting her sleep.”

“Such a good husband,” Diggle said.

“Remind me to kick your ass for that comment later.”

Diggle’s snort sounded a hell of a lot like Felicity’s as he hung up. It occurred to Oliver, not for the first time, that his partners were a couple of smartasses.

Next to him, Felicity shifted, slowly waking. He could tell she was aware the minute her hands snapped out, seeking the laptop he’d taken from her. She put the one that was now ring-less over her heart. “Oh, god, Oliver, you can’t do that to me, I thought I dropped it again and—wait, why do you have a picture of us on that thing and…”

She trailed off, her face going ashen. “No, no, no,” she said, and she snatched the laptop away, typing furiously. “This is not happening, this is—oh, god. Why? How?”

“Some kid with a camera phone. It’s okay, Felicity.”

“No, it’s _not_ okay, I screwed up. Hopefully they haven’t gotten too many pageviews and we can kill this, I can crash their servers, it will be fine.” She muttered under her breath, fingers flying way too fast for him to follow. Windows appeared and disappeared at blinding speeds.

He risked his life and put his hands over hers on the keyboard. “It’s already on the news back home. Diggle called. It’s out.”

“So Starling City thinks we’re…”

“Married, yes.”

Felicity’s curse was definitely not what most societies would consider ladylike.

“Just curious, but how deep did your hacking go on this one?” Oliver said. “Like, if TMZ were to look into public record…”

“They would find a marriage certificate. I didn’t Photoshop any pictures of us on a honeymoon or anything because that crossed the line into crazy stalker, but I needed to make sure, you know?” Felicity tipped her head back and closed her eyes, looking miserable. “We did not just become the plot of a ridiculous romantic comedy, we did not just become the plot of a ridiculous romantic comedy.”

Uncertainly, Oliver reached out and put his arms around her. He wasn’t the greatest with interaction, but she seemed like she could really use a hug. His own brain whirled. He’d landed himself in imbroglios quite a few times with the media, which was why the Queens kept a really good law firm on retainer. Usually those indiscretions could be bought off pretty easily (sometimes it was what they were going for all along), but he got the feeling that this isn’t going to be one of those times. And Felicity was not and would never be an indiscretion.

Hell, as far as the world’s concerned, he was married to her.

“I don’t know, I put on a mask and shoot bad guys in the knee with arrows,” Oliver said, since everything else sounded stupid.

“That still doesn’t make you Cupid.”

“Sure it does, Mrs. Cupid.” 

He felt her start shaking and instant panic set in. But when she pulled back, he could see she was crying because of the laughter quaking through her. “Mrs. Cupid?” she asked, wiping at the tears. “I never saw myself as much of a Psyche, really. But, Mrs. Cupid. Oh, gosh.”

Oliver decided he wasn’t going to ask who Psyche was. “Feeling better?”

“Freaking out less, at any rate. What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to talk to my lawyers and let a publicist come up with a cover story that doesn’t involve hacking or hospitals in Kazakhstan, and then we’ll get an annulment.”

“What’s our excuse for the annulment?”

“Too many drinks in Vegas?”

Felicity sighed and leaned back against the chair. “Maybe something that doesn’t involve Vegas. Vegas seems tacky to me. Maybe it’s the gold lamé or something. Either way, so many people are going to accuse me of being a gold-digger.”

“If either of us is digging for gold here, it’s me.” Oliver eyed Felicity’s hair. “Though I have it from a reliable source that you dye it.”

The joke was terrible but it at least made her smile as she rolled her eyes. “I’m going to go talk to Pilot Joe,” she said, “and see how much time we have until we land. You should probably call your lawyer. I mean, you’re the best fake husband, you really are, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I needed a better proposal than that.”

“Next time I’ll do better,” he said, and both of them froze. “I mean…”

“Yeah, I get what you mean,” she said, and he had the absurd pleasure of seeing her flush pink before she vanished into the cockpit. 

As for him, he mentally kicked himself a couple of times because how stupid was that, even? And then he sighed and picked up his phone. He needed to call his lawyer because he ended up fake-married to one of his best friends and now the world thought it was real, and it was only going to get worse, and his system was still recovering from the herbs. This is why, he thought, he never liked waking up in hospital beds.


	2. In Which A Monkey Wrench is Lovingly Applied to the Best Laid Plans of Oliver and Felicity

Diggle had the car waiting at the airstrip. Sometimes Oliver’s money was a help more than hindrance; Felicity imagined that if they had to go through the gate at the airport, there would be paparazzi mobbing the place. She wondered if that was what it was like for Oliver after those fishermen found him. Had he come back to Starling City to find a thousand members of the press and other skeevy organizations waiting for him at the gate, their flashbulbs ticking? He never really talked about that, but then, he was Oliver. He didn’t really talk about _anything_ , and on the subject of the world thinking them married, he was being even more reticent than usual. But now Diggle was waiting for them, and Felicity was relieved.

Until Diggle greeted them with the biggest grin ever. “How was the honeymoon?”

Oliver breathed out through his nose.

Felicity took a step between them. “I wouldn’t have picked Kazakhstan as the location of my honeymoon, and I’m kind of hoping that the real one doesn’t involve getting poisoned. Though with my luck, it will. The one time I decide to be adventurous with food, I’ll probably end up—ugh, it’s not real and it’s a nightmare.”

“It’s ‘best wishes’ if it’s to the bride, right?” Diggle asked. “And ‘congratulations’ to the groom?”

“Maybe we should get out of here now?” Oliver asked.

Diggle smiled when he climbed behind the wheel. Of course he found all of it funny. And it _would_ have been funny if it weren’t so wholly and completely mortifying.

“Both of your apartments have quite a few people watching, waiting for the first picture of the two of you as a married couple,” Diggle said.

Felicity felt her stomach tilt. Soon she was going to need a paper bag. Whether it was for throwing up or hyperventilation would be determined later.

“You should know that if you ever need any advice from a real married person, I’m here for you. Deeply, genuinely here for you,” Diggle said.

“You’re having a little too much fun with this,” Felicity said. “It could have just as easily been you on the faked marriage certificate. Though I don’t think Lyla would like that very much at all, and she’d probably karate chop me in half.”

“She would find it funny,” Diggle said. “Also, as amazing as the two of us are, Felicity, I doubt we’re TMZ material.”

“I am going to crash their servers,” Felicity said. “Not today, and not tomorrow because that would look suspicious, but someday soon. I shall have my revenge.”

Oliver placed his hand on her wrist, surprising her. “That’s heading down the bad guy route a little bit,” he said, giving her a tiny smile.

That smile, which actually reached his eyes, did wonderful things to the vipers eating at her stomach lining. She was aware that Oliver Queen had very strong opinions on marriage (otherwise he would have woken up married to somebody random in Vegas years ago, knowing him) and she was even more aware that this was her fault. She hadn’t killed the marriage certificate soon enough, and now TMZ had it and the world thought they were married. That knowledge sat like a stone on her chest, making it a little hard to breathe. 

Plus, _next time I’ll do better_? They weren’t even married for real and she had apparently passed on her ability to blurt out the most embarrassing thing possible. 

“TMZ deserves it,” she told him, giving him a dark look.

“No arguments here. Diggle, maybe we’ll go to the Foundry and come up with a game plan. Sara’s there?”

“Patrolling,” Diggle said cheerfully. 

“Without support?”

“She told me to remind you—for the fiftieth time—that she can look after herself. Those are her words verbatim.”

“You wouldn’t like her so much if she were a push-over,” Felicity said when he looked displeased, and it hit her: Sara. She didn’t know what Sara and Oliver’s relationship was and she suspected none of them really did, not even Sara and Oliver themselves. But she knew they weren’t platonic, which she tried not to let bother her. “Um, so, how did she take the news?”

“She says ‘Mazel Tov,’” Diggle said.

“That’s it?”

“It’s Sara,” Diggle said, and Felicity couldn’t deny that he had a point. 

Sara was back from her patrols when they arrived at the Foundry. It was nearly one in the morning, but Felicity’s time clock was completely off balance. Also, she didn’t think she’d be sleeping for a few days, not until they figured all of this out.

The last thing she expected was for Sara to give her a hug when they walked in. “Doing okay?” the vigilante asked, directing the question at both of them.

Oliver gave her the same tight smile he’d been showing to all of them. “I’ve had my death faked for five years, why not a fake marriage to add to that?” he asked.

“You sound like Felicity,” Sara said.

“Well, we _are_ married,” Felicity said, and all of them froze, which gave her plenty of time to add, “sort of.”

Sara started laughing first and Diggle, traitor that he was, joined in.

“C’mon,” Sara said, slinging a friendly arm around Felicity’s shoulders. “Ollie always had women throwing themselves at him, trying to trick him into marriage, and now the last woman that would do that is sort of married to him. It’s a little funny.”

“I’m tired, so we should come up with a plan,” Oliver said. “Like how we’re going to get Felicity back into her apartment without ending up on TMZ.”

“She can crash with me,” Sara said. “You go home like regular, Ollie. You’re used to the cameras, you can take it.”

“And I can’t?” Felicity asked. A split second, it occurred to her that this wasn’t a challenge against her as a person. Why would she even want to face the cameras? She didn’t want to be in this mess in the first place. Introducing herself as Mrs. Queen in the hospital just gave her unpleasant flashbacks of facing down Moira Queen and coming away licking her wounds. “Actually, never mind that. We’ve got a meeting with Oliver’s lawyers in the morning, to get this, um, sorted out. What we’re actually going to tell the lawyers is beyond me because I don’t think they’ll react well to ‘your client was dying so I faked being his wife to give him some all-healing herbs he picked up when he was stranded on an island for five years oh and also he’s the Arrow.’”

“If we’re throwing out suggestions, I would go with telling them none of that,” Diggle said, crossing his massive arms over his chest. “But then what do I know? I’m not the one who got married in an Asian country yesterday.”

She could actually hear Oliver breathing through his teeth. It was kind of fascinating.

“We’ll keep it simple,” Oliver said, looking at each of them in turn. “I ate something that didn’t agree with me, the hospital wasn’t letting Felicity in to see me, so she told a little white lie and used some rings she found at the hardware store.”

“So sort of the truth?” Felicity asked, raising her eyebrows.

“And the marriage certificate?” Sara asked. She let Felicity go to cross over to the monitors and pull up the evidence in high definition.

Oliver shrugged and gave them the ‘Playboy Oliver’ smile. “They can deal with that. They have ways.”

“And you really think that’s going to work?” Diggle asked.

“The amount they bill per hour means it will work perfectly,” Oliver said. “Anyway, any objections to this plan? Good. I’m going to sleep here. The meeting’s at nine.”

“C’mon, Felicity, we can take my bike,” Sara said. 

Which was how Felicity spent her first night “married” to Oliver sleeping on his sort-of girlfriend’s couch.

* * *

Several hours later, she was beginning to wish the couch had swallowed her whole.

“If I may ask, where did Miss Smoak get the skill to falsify the document and place it in city records?”

Felicity gave Oliver her most helpless look. For a second, all she could experience was the terror of sitting across the table in the interrogation room from Detective—no, Officer—Lance, denying her hacking abilities. But Oliver touched the side of her wrist under the table, dispelling those thoughts.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said to his lawyer, who had introduced himself with a smile and a please-call-me-Dave (Felicity was not going to; he looked like an actual adult, so Mr. Hu it was). “The document isn’t real. Felicity told a white lie because she was worried about me, and I don’t see why she should have to pay for that.”

“Well, she apparently displays enough familiarity with computer systems and our legal system to plant a very real-looking document into the city records. A document that,” and Mr. Hu shifted his glasses to look at his tablet, “has been in there for a couple of weeks, by all appearances. But we’ll disregard that for now. Why go as far as to plant the document?”

“Because—”

Oliver’s touch changed to a grip. He squeezed her hand in warning; they’d agreed before the meeting that she wasn’t supposed to talk. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You have my word it’s not real. Can you make it disappear?”

“Make it disappear?” Mr. Hu asked. “This is on the front page of every major news website right now. If it weren’t, I could make it go away easily. It wouldn’t be a problem. But the fact of the matter is, you’re in the spotlight right now.”

Felicity wanted to moan and rest her forehead against the cold glass of the table. Oliver’s lawyers had a super-nice office, entirely made of chrome and cream and glass. Of course, he probably paid them a fortune greater than the income of some third world countries, but still. She hadn’t commented because she was trying to stick to their deal and not talk, but things were _not_ going well.

“I have no idea why the media is paying as much attention to us as it is,” Oliver said.

“Yes,” Felicity said, finally breaking. “Why are they even interested? It’s not really that scandalous. It’s not like it’s a picture of Oliver doing blow off of a hooker’s—”

Oliver’s fingers spasmed on her wrist. “I thought I told you to stop doing image searches of me,” he said under his breath.

Felicity wrinkled her nose. “How am I supposed to get rid of the pictures if I don’t search for them in the first place?” 

“I agree that it’s not very scandalous, all things considered,” Mr. Hu said, making them both look up. He clicked his pen a couple of times and tapped the tip against the glass. “But our researchers have noticed a trend that might surprise you. The two of you have garnered quite a lot of support.”

Felicity and Oliver blinked in unison at the lawyer. “I beg your pardon?” Felicity asked.

Finally, Mr. Devlin straightened up, stretching a little bit. His eyes were deep-set and heavy-lidded and Felicity wondered if he just appeared to be sleepy or he hadn’t actually slept. Either way, he cleared his throat. “Shareholder points for Queen Consolidated took a healthy bump when the news hit.”

“Well, that’s good and all, but—”

“Analytics place ‘Queen’ as well as your names and ‘CEO and Cinderella’ as common phrases in social media sites across the board, as well.”

“CEO and what?” Felicity asked. She wasn’t hearing this. This was not real. 

“Trending topics on Twitter included your names—including a ‘cutesy’ portmanteau I won’t share here—and the most popular retweets were of the picture from Kazakhstan,” Mr. Devlin said, pushing a tablet across the table. Felicity caught it by instinct; the numbers flashing across it made her goggle in shock.

Next to her, Oliver let go of her wrist. He wasn’t even brushing up against her and Felicity could feel him tensing, going stiff as a board. It didn’t help her own stomach, which was threatening to upend all of its contents onto the tablet she held. Which might actually be preferable because she simply could not believe these numbers.

Last week was a bad time to turn off their Google Alerts.

“What are you saying?” Oliver said between his teeth.

“I’m saying, Mr. Queen, that quite without any prompting from our PR department, the public has painted the secret marriage of you and Miss Smoak into quite the fairytale romance.” Mr. Devlin met Oliver’s gaze head on, never blinking.

If there were ever any words that Felicity was positive would never describe anything in her life, they were “fairytale romance.” Hell, romance itself had been kind of in increasingly short supply since she joined Team Arrow. Not that she was complaining. She wasn’t complaining. It was just a fact of her life. She’d mostly made her peace with it.

But that didn’t stop her from doing what she did best: she blurted out the first thing to that comes to mind. “They’re saying I’m _Cinderella_? But I had both of my shoes on in that picture.”

Mr. Hu and Mr. Devlin both blinked at her over that one, but interestingly, she saw the corner of Oliver’s mouth twitch up.

Distress over the very real kettle of hot water she’d landed them in, however, took precedence over embarrassment. “So what do we do?” she asked. “There must be something.”

“Well, if I’m going to be honest, the best thing we can do right now is not to call any attention to the falsified document, if you’re so interested in protecting Miss Smoak, Mr. Queen.”

“I am,” Oliver said.

“So in this case we would simply file for an annulment. I assume that the marriage hasn’t been consummated.”

“No,” Oliver said before Felicity could do anything more than sputter. “Given that it’s not real, it has not been. If an annulment will protect Felicity from any legal recrimination, then I’m for that. She was doing everything in her power to make sure I was okay. She doesn’t need to be punished for that.”

“Understandable. And an annulment is acceptable to you as well, Miss Smoak.”

“Absolutely.” 

“Okay, I’ll start drawing up the paperwork—”

“Actually,” Mr. Devlin said, and Felicity felt something deep inside freeze. “We might want to hold off on that.”

Oliver turned toward him with a look Felicity had seen quite a few times. Usually it was hidden under the hood. “And why would we want to do that?”

“Because right now, Queen Consolidated’s approval rating is almost to pre-earthquake levels. Your fairytale romance is exactly the kind of attention we need.”

“Can anybody else hear the opening music to a horror movie right now, or is it just me?” Felicity asked because suddenly, she could see exactly where this was going to and the Felicity Train did not stop at that station. 

The vein jumping in Oliver’s neck told her she wasn’t alone in figuring it out. “I will not,” he said in a measured voice, “use Miss Smoak’s reputation as a publicity stunt. I know what you’re getting at and the answer is no.”

“Doing this could provide us with the profits margin to finally buy out Isabel Rochev’s shares of Queen Consolidated,” Devlin said, and Felicity froze.

She knew what Isabel Rochev was capable of, more than anybody else. She was the one that did the research back when they were trying to save Queen Consolidated. She read the reports, the roll-outs, the employee testimonials, all of it about what Isabel Rochev did to the companies she bought. Hell, most of the reason she and Diggle had gone to fetch Oliver had been because Felicity could see the writing on the wall. It had taken her seeing him in person to realize how much she had been denying missing him at all.

“We have a plan to buy back her shares,” Oliver said, turning his attention back to the men across the table. “My private life—and Miss Smoak’s—shouldn’t enter into that.” 

“How long?” Felicity asked.

All three men blinked at her.

“To buy Rochev out? How long? Oh, don’t look at me like you’re surprised. I’ve been his EA for months, I practically help him run his side of the company. I can talk business.”

Oliver leaned toward her, looking pained. “If this is about Russia…”

“It’s not.” She looked at Mr. Devlin specifically. “How long?”

“Six months,” he said, straightening his shoulders and giving her a look of renewed interest. “Provided the public stays enamored with you, and anticipating no major setbacks.”

Felicity breathed in deeply. Six months. That seemed like an impossibly long time, especially with the amount of danger they faced almost every night. Also, she was well-aware of how insane this sounded and how insane she must be for even considering it. 

But if it would save all of the Queen Consolidated employees…

“Felicity,” Oliver said. “Can we talk? Alone?”

Mr. Hu and Mr. Devlin rose to their feet, buttoning their suit jackets as they did so. “We’ll let you have the room,” Mr. Hu said.

Mr. Devlin followed him out. “One thing,” he said, pausing in the doorway. “An annulment now will set us back in our attempts to seize control from Miss Rochev. Keep that in mind.”

Oliver breathed through his teeth again as the door closed. Felicity instantly felt a sharp stab of remorse because, after all, it had been her actions and her complacency that have gotten them into this mess. If only she’d taken care of the fake marriage certificate faster, then they could just claim a bad Photoshop job on the picture outside of the hospital and they would be going about their day like it was just another regular, ordinary day.

“Oliver, I’m sorry,” she said.

He stayed quiet.

“This is such a nightmare. I keep pinching myself and hoping I’ll wake up and nope, I’m awake already. And I’m sorry I was even considering it, even if it was just for a second. It’s crazy. We’ll find another way to get the company back from Isabel—”

“How long would it take?”

Felicity gripped the arms of her chair. This was not the question she expected from Oliver. “Maybe a year if nothing goes wrong? I don’t know exactly. I’ve done the numbers, but it’s going to take time.”

“And now it will take longer?”

“Probably. Most likely, actually. I’m sorry, Oliver—”

She hears his teeth click together. “Please stop saying you’re sorry.”

“Okay. Sorry—I mean, sor—yeah, I’ll stop talking now.”

Oliver pushed himself to his feet and she watched him warily as he crossed to the window. Even without living in his pocket for a year, she’d have been able to read his body language. For a second, she wanted to tell him to use his words, dammit, because she was pretty close to freaking out and she didn’t want to freak out alone. But instead, she waited and watched the silent war going on under that stillness.

Finally, he spoke. “I don’t want to be married.”

She couldn’t stop the stab to her heart, even if it was completely irrational. “Technically, we’re not. If that helps.”

Oliver punched the wall, a short, vicious jab that made her jump. He stayed rooted in the spot, breathing shallowly through his nose. “I am an idiot,” he said, and those were again the last words she expected to come out of his mouth. “I am an idiot for even thinking about this. But if it gets her out of Queen Consolidated faster, I can’t help but maybe think, how can I not? As unfair as that is to you.”

“I’m the one who got us into this, hello,” Felicity said, and her heart was beating a little faster. Whether it was from being startled or how _heavy_ this moment felt, like it was a tangible thing, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Oliver looked at her. The expression in his eyes would surely have wrecked a stronger person than her. “That doesn’t mean you should have to pay for this. It’s six months of your life. Minimum.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you already are my life. I never see my house, I spend my days with you and my nights with you and oh, god, I’m stopping there.” Felicity clenched her left fist, squeezing her fingers one by one. It was a trick she’d learned to help her with the inappropriate innuendos and the babbling, and she got a feeling her hand was about to get a workout. “I want her gone, too. And I wouldn’t be giving up as much as you think I am. Hell, you’d be giving up more.”

Oliver stared out the window again. “This is crazy.”

“And you know that’s true when it’s coming from the guy who spent five years on a remote island.”

“I want a post-nup.”

“A what? No, wait. Oliver, our marriage certificate’s not even real.”

“Nobody knows that. And you’re so good they’ll never know that. If we’re going to be—to be married,” and Oliver went a little pale, and she’d have been fascinated by that but she was feeling a little pale herself, “I want you protected from the fall-out.”

“You don’t have to be responsible for me. I’m a big girl.”

Oliver crossed his arms over his chest and _stared_. Felicity knew she had a fifty-fifty chance of winning one of those stare-downs, but it wasn’t the time. So she sighed. “No gifting me outlandish things in the post-nup. I mean it.”

For a second, his grin popped up. “Define outlandish.”

The full implications finally caught up to her: if they went through with this, the world would think she was Oliver Queen’s wife. Hell, according to the statistics on the tablet in front of her, most of them already did think that. And it was not just being his Girl Wednesday (he refused to get that right) or the voice in his ear, pulling him back when he was out in the city fighting people with guns and knives and bombs, but they would be _married_ (sort of) and all that that implied. She was glad that she was already sitting down because her knees melted into gelatin. She had to grip the sides of the table to keep from hyperventilating. “Are we,” she said, “really considering this?”

She could hear how shaky Oliver felt when he took a deep breath. “Yes. Besides, it’s not really that much of a stretch.”

Felicity turned to look at him.

Oliver shrugged. “You already call me your work wife.”

The humor helped dispel some of the nerves. She gave him a cautious and wavering smile. “So…what now? Do I get down on one knee and propose? You’ve already got the ring.”

“I think…we can settle this on a handshake. Felicity Smoak, will you do me the honor of being my fake wife to trick the world into giving us good PR so we can finally dump Isabel Rochev?”

“At least until a better idea comes along,” Felicity said.

And then she shook her partner’s hand and wondered if he was questioning what the hell they’ve gotten themselves into now, too.

* * *

“I’m sorry, you’re going to do _what_?” was all Diggle said when they told him the news two hours later.


	3. In Which The Crap (Mostly) Does Not Hit the Fan, But Thea’s BS Detector Goes Off Anyway

By the time they finished at the law office, Oliver felt like a husk.

He’d felt exhausted before and he would again. It went hand in hand with being a vigilante, and frankly, he was still recovering from being poisoned in Kazakhstan, so the hollowness he felt was partially that he wasn’t fully up to task yet. He spent five years of his life exhausted in some form or another, tired of the existential questions, weary of survival, fed up with the realities of his existence. And ever since he returned to Starling City, at least somebody had been one step ahead of him, be it Malcolm Merlyn, Count Vertigo, Deadshot, or even Isabel Rochev with her desire to take over his family’s company.

But he’d never felt quite like this before, like he had a purpose and a target and he couldn’t work up the nerve to string the bow and nock the arrow and bring his enemy to the ground. Because his enemy, in this case, wasn’t a person or even an ideal. His enemy was a businesswoman and defeating her meant crossing one of the very few lines he set for himself, the very first time he came to understand the harsh truths about his parents’ marriage.

He kept silent as Diggle drove him and Felicity to his apartment, though he presented a small, absent smile to the paparazzi that waited outside, even though they shouted and crowded Felicity and him on their way up his front walk. In the apartment, the tour was easy to give because the apartment was an open space, impersonal because he hired a firm to decorate it for him. His apartment was for sleeping and most nights he crashed in the Foundry anyway. It was a little strange that he’d never had Felicity over there, and now she was moving in.

“Oliver, this hurts.” Indeed, Felicity grimaced as she stood in the middle of his living room with her heels dangling from the fingers of one hand. “Is this why you never had me over before now? Was it shame?”

“Weren’t you the one telling me that people have started using their computers as a TV replacement?” Oliver asked as he uncapped a beer for Diggle. He decided to ignore that Diggle downed half the beer. It was a situation that would likely lead all of them to drink at some point or another—they’d gotten into messes before, but this was a fine one—so he couldn’t exactly fault Diggle for getting a head-start.

“But I know for a fact that you don’t do that,” Felicity said. “Which is why you should have a TV. You’re a vigilante in charge of protecting a city and TV is a great way to get news about major disasters. Also I checked your network, and it’s so unsecure it burns. Like genuinely causes me pangs of emotion deep down in my soul.”

“Here. Drown your sorrows.” Oliver handed her a beer.

“Thank you.”

Diggle pinched the bridge of his nose. “You two realize that being married, even in the eyes of the public, that’s a lot more than moving into an apartment together, right? Tell me I’m not the only one seeing problems here.”

Oliver and Felicity exchanged a look. “Yeah,” Felicity said. “We got that, John.”

“I’m not sure you do,” Diggle said.

“Do you want Isabel breathing down our necks for even longer? Because if we get an annulment, that’s what’s going to happen,” Felicity said. “We’re adults. We can handle it.”

Diggle muttered something under his breath. Oliver decided he’d pay his friend back for the “crazy-ass white people” comment on the mat.

“We worked it out with the lawyers,” Felicity said. She took a sip and grimaced again, and Oliver realized that he had no idea if Felicity even liked beer. She liked to wander up to Verdant when it was quiet, but usually she drank with Sara, not him. She knew his drink orders perfectly, but he had no idea what hers were. “Oliver’s place has better security, and we’ll set up the guest bedroom for me. People already think I slept my way into my current job, so nobody’s going to exactly be surprised at work.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Oliver said, and Felicity waved it off like it was old news.

“So really, it’s not like much changes,” Felicity said, and he could tell she was being determinedly cheerful. “We’ll keep up the charade in public, I’ll stay here and keep making mortgage payments on my house, and in six months when we seize the company back from Isabel, we’ll come forward with the announcement that we’re better as friends, I’ll move back home, and we’ll get a divorce. Probably a fake one to match our fake marriage certificate.”

“See? She’s got it figured out,” Oliver said with humor he also doesn’t feel. He held his beer bottle up. “To Felicity’s and my fake marriage.”

Diggle gave them both looks. “I am not toasting that. I am not endorsing this.”

“Your loss.” Felicity tapped her bottle against Oliver’s. “I have personally always wanted to be fake married to my really hot—I mean, to my boss. Gah. Though now I might have to file for divorce early because you don’t even own a TV, Oliver.”

“In the interest of being a good roommate, I will let you pick out a TV,” Oliver said. “And you can set up whatever network you want. Sky’s the limit, okay?”

“Okay?” Her face lit up. “More than okay! That makes me so happy I could kiss you.”

They all heard the footsteps at the same time. “Well,” Thea said as she ambled in, looking annoyed, “don’t stop on my account.”

“Hi.” Oliver set down his beer, hard, mostly to cover the fact that Felicity jumped two feet in the air and that Diggle automatically reached for a side-arm. “How did you get in?”

“If you wanted to keep me out, shouldn’t have given me a key. Though I guess I should knock now that you’ve got a wife and all. Who knows what I’ll walk in on?” Thea’s eyes cut to Felicity and Oliver could practically hear his partner gulp. “Congratulations, by the way. Or is it mazel tov?”

“Thea,” Oliver said because he recognized that sort of angry, wild desperation on his sister’s face. He’d seen it too many times since he returned from Lian Yu, whenever he didn’t measure up to the standards Thea had built in her head over time. 

“No, really,” she said before he could try to make an apology. She looked between him and Felicity. “Don’t let me interrupt. I wouldn’t want to be the annoying baby sister that gets in the way of your wedded bliss.”

For a moment, awkwardness settled in. Oliver tried to think of a lie he could tell Thea about his fake marriage, something that won’t involve admitting he’d nearly died—that would only lead to more questions—but his mind went absolutely blank.

Felicity, on the other hand, let out a choked laugh. “You heard the lady,” she said, and to Oliver’s surprise, she rose up on her toes and kissed him, quickly. It was a brief, warm of her lips to his, but Oliver went still. 

“Huh,” Thea said, her brows drawing together. “That looked…incredibly awkward.”

Diggle made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a muffled laugh.

“I’m not that great with public displays of affection. Sorry. Yeah,” Felicity said. Oliver had one glimpse at how bright pink she was before she turned away, her hand over the lower part of her face.

“Uh-huh,” Thea said.

“Not to be rude, Speedy,” Oliver said between his teeth, “what are you doing here?”

Thea sauntered over to the refrigerator and helped herself to a Diet Coke. “I’m congratulating my big bro on his nuptials. It’s not every day your brother gets married—or you find out about it via Twitter.”

Oliver flinched.

“I mean, at the very least, it should’ve been Snapchat.” Thea’s baleful gaze swept over them as she opened the soda. “Assuming any of you were actually sober enough to operate Snapchat. I’m guessing copious amounts of alcohol were involved.”

“We weren’t drunk,” Oliver said since Felicity still looked ready to vanish through the nearest exit and Diggle’s shrug was the epitome of _you got yourself into this_. “But it did happen quickly. And we were going to tell everybody, but…”

“The internet kind of beat us to the punch,” Felicity said. She took another panicky breath and Oliver recognized that one of her verbal geysers was on its way. He didn’t stop her in time, for she barreled onward: “Look, it’s my fault. Oliver wanted everybody there, he did, but I didn’t want to cause a stir at work and if you tell one person, you have to tell fifty and then it would have spiraled and I don’t know if I could have that much attention on me. We got two strangers to be our witnesses, it was all very hush-hush—and romantic! Right, of course, it was romantic. Very romantic and hush-hush, yes and I’m gonna stop talking, if that’s okay.”

Thea eyed all three of them suspiciously, one at a time. Her gaze settled on Diggle. “Did you know?”

He held his hands up. “These two idiots didn’t even invite me, either. I would have made a great speech, and now the world will never hear it.”

“Oh, you’ll get your chance,” Thea said. “You think I’m going to let the two of you run off and elope without a party?”

“Oh god,” Felicity said. 

“We have to welcome Felicity into the family in style,” Thea said, and the smile she gave Oliver was malicious. She toasted both of them with her drink. “I’ll host it at Verdant. All you have to do is show up and be so obviously in love like you are now. It’ll be _the_ party of the year. It’s the least I can do for my brand new sister-in-law.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Oliver said, taking a step forward.

She ignored him and focused on Felicity instead. “Can I see the ring?”

“Uh, I don’t have it. On me. That is. I mean, it’s gorgeous, Oliver picked out the perfect one for me and everything, but I don’t…” 

“It’s in the shop, getting cleaned,” Oliver said since Felicity resembled a cat treed by the lioness that was his younger sister. A ring. He had to buy a ring. He stepped between Felicity and Thea. “We don’t need a party, Thea. We wanted to keep this under wraps, for the most part.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you started trending, brother mine.” Thea’s betrayed look made his stomach hurt. “Well, as fun as this isn’t, I’m gonna scoot. Ollie, you’ve got something on your…” She tapped the side of her lips, gave them all a jaunty wave, and sailed out of the room.

The minute the door closed behind her, Diggle shook his head. “I take it all back. This is going to be so much fun.”

Felicity moaned and rested her forehead against the hand holding her beer. “She knows something’s up.”

“Probably, but it’s our first day on the job. And at least it’s only going to be a party,” Oliver said. “Depending on her mood, she has the power to recreate an entire wedding for us. Maybe we should count our blessings.”

“Your mother’s going to be there, isn’t she?”

“Probably. Knowing my sister, most of Starling City will be, too.” He wanted something stronger than beer, but Oliver pulled out fixings for sandwiches instead. He could use something with more protein, as he can still feel the effects of the poison the League assassin used on him in Asia. “Just another thing to deal with. We’ll get through it.”

Felicity raised her head, looking aggrieved. “Well, great. Perfect. Oh, crap, she’s right, I got lipstick on your face.”

To his surprise, she stepped around the refrigerator door and smudged her thumb over the corner of his mouth. An intense flash of memory, of her wiping off blood and making a joke about his shaving habits to Isabel, made him stop. This time there wasn’t any nervous laughter. She just wiped at the lipstick, her brow furrowed in concentration. “If that’s going to be a thing for us, I should really switch to a brand that rubs off less,” she said.

“Yes, take one for the team,” Diggle said, taking a sip of his beer.

“That’s just what we need: the Arrow running around with pink lipstick all over his face,” Felicity said, and Oliver was surprised at how much he suddenly wanted to shift his feet and back away from her, but she was still trying to rub the color off. “He’ll really strike fear into the hearts of the bad guys then. I think I got it. Or most of it. Sorry.”

“Thanks,” Oliver said, and he cleared his throat. “I can try and talk Thea out of the party if it really bothers you.”

“Good luck with that,” Diggle said.

Felicity sighed. “She’s doing us a favor, really, when you look at it. We can insist that she donate the proceeds of our party—or, I guess it would be our reception—to a charity or something. Keep playing up that fairy tale image the publicity department loves so much.”

“Devious and philanthropic. I like it. What do you think, Oliver?”

His thoughts were that he didn’t really care about a party. It was just another in a long line of them, of showing up as the CEO of Queen Consolidated in a tuxedo and smiling for people he didn’t care about. In truth, he was more concerned by just how addled standing that close to Felicity, with her fingers against his lips, had left him. He picked up a knife and spread mayonnaise on a piece of bread with a sigh. “I think we need to buy some rings, if only to save Felicity from having to come up with more excuses.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Felicity said.

* * *

Given his preference, Oliver would have gone to the Foundry that afternoon to get in some time working out, but with the press intensely focused on them, it was safer to just stay in for a little while. Diggle cried off after finishing his sandwich, commenting that he had his own marital issues—or ex-marital issues—to work on. Oliver hung around while Felicity moved around the apartment, familiarizing herself with the layout of his kitchen before she switched to setting up a network (and getting down on her hands and knees to do some of the wiring herself). Before long, the remnants of the League poison made themselves known, so Oliver laid on his couch and took a nap while Felicity worked.

He had no idea his couch was so comfortable.

When he stumbled into the bathroom, groggy from his nap, he finally noticed the tiny pink smudge at the corner of his lips. Calmly, he washed it off.

“Settled in?” he asked Felicity, who sat at the kitchen island with two laptops and a tablet. It looked like a portable version of her Foundry setup.

“As much as I can be without most of my stuff. I ordered a dehumidifier for the guest bedroom since it’s probably just easier to keep one here rather than tote one back and forth. That’s okay, right?” She gave him a hesitant smile when he nodded. “Have a nice nap?”

“Anything you want. I wasn’t kidding when I said sky’s the limit.” He walked to the refrigerator and poured himself an orange juice, gulping most of it down. “Any catastrophes I should know about?”

“If you don’t count the bad Photoshop jobs of us I found on Twitter, no. Officer Lance called, but he called Oliver’s and not the Arrow’s, so I let it go to voicemail.”

“I appreciate that.”

“For the record, we’re avoiding him until we talk to Sara, right?” 

Oliver grimaced.

“Taking that as a yes,” Felicity said. “But that’s good because she’s on her way over. You missed a really fun Skype call where she made fun of everything in my closet as she packed a bag for me. But I own about fifty percent less fishnets than her, so who’s the real winner here, hmm?”

Oliver grinned because he really couldn’t help himself. “I’ve learned better than to comment.”

“Good call. I did rock a good pair of fishnets for a _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ thing once, but those days are long in my past. Oh, hey, Sara. We’re just talking about you.”

Eyebrows high, Sara let herself into the apartment with a cardboard box tucked under one arm and wheeled luggage trundling after her. Her eyes cut down to Felicity’s legs and back. “Fishnets?” she asked while Oliver rolled his eyes at her.

“I deleted all evidence,” Felicity said.

Sara set the box down on the counter. “Darn. Could’ve put that in your wedding album. Maybe we can get a repeat performance at the bachelorette party.”

Felicity made a face. “Does there really need to be a bachelorette party if the marriage isn’t real?”

“The only thing that needs to be real is the alcohol. Brought all the stuff you wanted.”

“Angel. Goddess. My favorite.” Felicity stood to grab the box and the bag, though Sara waved her off of the latter. “Let’s go dump this in my new habitat. Be right back, Oliver.”

Because Sara shot him a significant look as she trailed Felicity out, Oliver finished his orange juice and stayed put. It wasn’t hard to admit that maybe he was grateful that Sara had given him a way out of not discussing his current marital predicament the night before. If they were going to go through with this charade, the piper had to be paid, which included dealing with all of the lingering strangeness their relationship had been dealing with these past few weeks.

Having the world believe you were secretly in a fairy tale marriage, Oliver was discovering quickly, was really good incentive to have that Come to Jesus talk your relationship had been missing.

Indeed, when Sara came back, Felicity wasn’t with her. “Wanna go a couple rounds? Your wife said I’m allowed to break you as long as we’re both cleaned up by dinner time.”

“She’s not my wife.”

“I know. But I get at least one dig.”

“One. You get one.”

His apartment had a home gym in it, a room that he told the interior decorator to leave alone. There hadn’t been enough space for a salmon ladder, but he kept sparring weapons around and a full set of weights. Out of courtesy, he let Sara pick the weapons, and he was completely unsurprised when she tossed him a bo staff.

“Just out of curiosity,” he said, spinning it. “How mad are you?”

“Not mad at all.” She snapped the staff into the air and caught it, and he remembered that once upon a time, she had been on the color guard at their high school. It was such an incongruous mental image, now that he’s seen the way her eyes could darken or the set of her jaw as she fought off a man twice her size. “I still think it’s funny.”

“Oh, great, that’s—” He barely got the staff up in time when she attacked. The next sixty seconds were an exhilarating whirl of feinting and dodging. Her face stayed absolutely calm as she drove him backward, but he could read the tension she thought he couldn’t see in the way she brought the staff down a little too hard, the beats of viciousness in which she drove at the holes in his fighting. 

When he finally fought her off, he gave her a look. “Liar.”

“Not mad, I swear.”

“Then why are you trying to take my head off?”

Sara jabbed at his ankle. “Maybe I think your form’s sloppy.”

“My form is perfect.”

“Your form is—you know, you’re lucky you’re such a good fighter _in spite_ of your form.”

“Hey,” Oliver said, puffing out an amused breath. He attacked, starting a new round, and this time he could tell Sara was going easy on him, but he didn’t mind. For a good ten minutes, they did nothing but move in the kind of dance a good fight required. She whacked his calf, he landed a glancing blow off of her upper arm, but as much as they sought weak points, he could tell that they were neither giving it all their all.

Finally, he spotted an opening. He went for it, hoping to tap her across the abdomen. The split-second of a smirk was the only warning that the opening wasn’t as perfect as he’d suspected. She flipped clean over his bo staff, snatched it with her free hand, and yanked it backward. He overbalanced and had to catch himself to keep from crashing to the floorboards, and when he looked up, her weapon sat snugly against his Adam’s apple.

“Maybe I’m a little mad,” she said, sighing. “But not at you.”

Oliver looked at the bo staff at his throat and raised his eyebrow. “I’m confused.”

She extended a hand to help him up, and he took it, popping up to his feet. By silent and mutual agreement, they moved to the wall to hang the staffs up. “I saw the news. You know, when your story broke. That millionaire Oliver Queen picks himself up a wife on a business trip. It was all over Channel Seven.”

“Sara, I’m sorry. We had no idea.”

“I figure if you had any idea it was coming, Ollie, we probably wouldn’t be talking about this. You’d have stopped it. You don’t have anything to apologize for.” Sara crouched to pick up a couple of waters from the little mini-fridge. She took her time and she wasn’t looking at him, and Oliver felt his stomach pitch. “But I think I do.”

“I’m not sure I’m following.”

She pushed herself to her feet (she was favoring one of her ankles a little, he noticed) and held out the bottle of water. “What does it say about me,” she said, “that when I heard the news that my boyfriend upped and married somebody else, the first thing I felt was relief?”

Oliver’s hands on the water bottle twitched. “I don’t know,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.

“It was only for a second, but…” Sara tilted her head back, her eyes closing. There was a wealth of pain etched into her expression. “I think, for just the moment, I had this profound sense that ‘thank god, thank god, I’m not going to have a chance to be the train wreck that brings us down in flames.’”

“I could be the train wreck, you know,” Oliver said. “I have experience.”

“Even if you do, I have to wonder if you knew what you were getting yourself into. I’m not a bad bet, Ollie, but I’m pretty damn close.”

Oliver took a deep breath, and another. “Sara, are you using the fake marriage the media created to break up with me?”

“I don’t know.” Sara finally met his gaze, and for a moment, Oliver really wasn’t sure how he felt anymore. It was just one more hit on top of all of the others he’d felt since waking up in that hospital bed. “Maybe. I think I am. Maybe it’s a sign. It complicates your life less if I’m not in the picture if you’re going to be tap-dancing for the media to get your company back.”

“You get that the marriage is fake, right? Felicity’s already said she doesn’t want to get in the way of what we have.” She’d been very explicit about it, actually, in the ride from the lawyers’ office to his apartment, about how he didn’t owe her anything—which was a lie, she was Felicity, she’d saved his life too many times to count—and she wasn’t going to judge him. And while the idea of even being partially married to Felicity and still seeing Sara on the side kind of sat like a lump in his stomach, he loved Sara. She’d been a missing piece settling back into place the first time he’d seen her alive again on that rooftop.

He didn’t want this.

“It’s not about Felicity at all.” Sara shook her head, and her eyes spoke pure tragedy. “It’s…I’m just giving you a head’s up. I think you’ve felt this coming, too.”

“I haven’t,” Oliver said, but she gave him that one particular look only she could make, the one where she saw right through him, and part of him wondered if she had a point. “Sara, I want us to work.”

“Do you? My head is not a pretty place, Oliver. Do you really want some broken ex-assassin bartender who still dreams about her ex-girlfriend all the time? Is that what you want?”

“I want you,” Oliver said, which he felt should be enough. He also wanted not to be married, he wanted Thea not to be pissed at him for breaking her trust yet again, and he wanted to be in the Foundry shooting tennis balls into the wall. But it did not appear to be a day where he got what he wanted.

“I really am sorry, Ollie. I think…I think this was coming, but the craziness sped up the timetable, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Not especially,” Oliver said. 

“Yeah. I thought that might be the case.” Sara bit her lower lip. “I’ll clear off, go see my mom in Central City. It’ll give us both some time to think. I think that might be the best solution for all of us, just until this media frenzy dies down.”

“You don’t have to do that. Felicity would appreciate having you around.”

“But you wouldn’t. I’m friends with you both.”

“I’ll take any piece of you I can get.”

For a second, he saw tears well up in Sara’s eyes, but none fell. Instead, she dug her teeth into her bottom lip harder and surprised him by hugging him around the middle. “I’m so sorry, Ollie. So, so sorry.”

She left after that, but not before she apologized again, and he was too hollow to do anything more than nod tiredly. Frankly, by this point in his day, even with the nap, all he wanted to do was lay down and sleep for an eternity. Maybe if he could do that, this would all be over. The problems with Isabel and the media would vanish, returning him, if not to normalcy, at least to a setting he preferred. He took his aggression out on the training dummies and resistance training, pushing himself until he practically saw double. It didn’t solve anything, but it made him feel at least a little better. 

When he finally washed in the gym shower and headed into the kitchen, Felicity was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a Tupperware container on the shelf of the fridge: “Felicity Smoak’s famous enchiladas: just microwave for 90 seconds and _et voila_. If you need to talk, door’s open. Just please knock first in case I’m dancing along to Madonna or something. – F”

He didn’t wait for the enchiladas to cool, as the smell hit him before he even opened the microwave. Hunger made him practically demolish the entire dish. It struck him as he stood alone in the dark, feasting on enchiladas, that no matter how awful the day has been, at least he’d sort of married somebody that could really cook. 


	4. In Which the Enemy is Faced and Important Questions about Breakfast are Answered

Felicity had never quite felt like she had belonged, even in her early years. She’d hated that plastic family they tried to sell in commercials because it was hard to look at their artificial smiles and find a reflection of her relationship with mother. So the feeling of displacement had always been present, but she was learning very quickly that there was a vast ocean of difference between “My mom and I aren’t like Tina’s family down the street” and “I regularly commit felonies for a guy that’s a vigilante by night and a CEO by day and now the world thinks our not-exactly-real marriage is the greatest thing since sliced bread.” And even if she’d mostly made her peace with her extracurricular work in the name of vigilante justice, this was a new level of weirdness, even for her.

Like the world thinking she was some kind of Cinderella.

Like kissing Oliver.

Like waking up in his guest bedroom.

Given everything that had happened, she didn’t think it was overindulgent to stick her head back under her pillow and stay there with her eyes squeezed shut until she had a little better grip on reality.

She found Oliver in the open dining room, after she had brushed her hair and her teeth and put on a base layer of makeup. One of the realities she was working to accept was that he would regularly see her with sushi pajamas and bed-head. But the longer she could put that off, the better. At least some things never changed, though: when she wandered in, Oliver was at the island, wearing sweatpants, sans shirt, and calmly peeling a grapefruit.

“Hey, roomie,” she said. Yes, she’d kissed him, but it was under duress and what was a little kiss between friends? She could keep it together.

He looked up to give her a smile, so apparently it was only weird for one of them. “Roomie?”

“It’s the least awkward of all of your potential nicknames, and I never really got on the Ollie train.”

“Please never do.”

“Deal.”

“Grapefruit?” He held up half of it in invitation.

“Oh, no, thank you. Though thank you for answering the question of who actually eats grapefruit for breakfast because I thought that was always a myth the media told us.” 

“Glad to be of service. Sleep well?”

“I may write a ballad to your sheets,” she said as she hunted up a coffee. While she really preferred tea in the morning, shopping was something they could worry about later. “I hope that won’t be too uncomfortable for you, especially when I accompany myself on the air guitar because _wow._ Clouds wish they were that comfortable.”

Oliver raised his mug in a toast. “I’m glad you approve. Um, do you have the schedule handy?”

Felicity reached over to open the app she’d written to keep track of their schedules for various masks they wear throughout the day. She was looking forward to installing some smart screens in the kitchen. “AJ’s got a soccer game this afternoon, so Digg will need to be there for that. You’ve got a meeting with Isabel at ten and you probably shouldn’t miss it as you’ve canceled the last two.”

“Mm.”

“Nothing on the Arrow’s schedule, so we’ll ease back into things with a light night of listening to the police scanner and putting the fear of hoods into people trying to knock over liquor stores.”

“Do we have time to hit a jewelry store before the meeting with Isabel?”

Felicity frowned as she paged through memos. “This afternoon, we do, but I was thinking about heading over to the precinct to talk to Officer Lance and start smoothing over ruffled feathers so we don’t have a Thea two point oh problem. Want to tag along for that?”

Oliver stuck his tongue out and pointed at the back of his throat, gagging.

“Yeah, I don’t blame you for that. That guy, not your biggest fan.”

Which, she learned, was a massive understatement. Officer Lance and Oliver might have buried the hatchet as far as the past was concerned, but Oliver eloping with his assistant while in a relationship with Sara was a little too much for Quentin Lance. By the time Felicity walked into Queen Consolidated after her coffee with Lance, her ears were ringing and she felt like her skin might actively start to peel and expose the liar underneath. 

The security guard, who usually just gave her an absent smile and a nod, jumped out of his desk chair the moment he spotted her in the lobby. He held open the security gate for her with a nod and a “Mrs. Queen.”

“Um, no, I’m keeping my name, Harry, but thank you. I appreciate the assist.”

Past the security gate, she had to stop and take a long, deep breath, and then another when that did absolutely nothing. _Just get through this, Felicity. You handled it when everybody thought you’d slept your way into the EA job, you can handle this now._ She repeated the words like a mantra in her head as she took the elevator up to her office.

Diggle waited by the elevator with a steaming cup of coffee. “Have I told you lately that I love you?” Felicity asked.

“Better not let the media hear you flirting with somebody who isn’t your husband.”

Felicity grumbled under breath. “How are things around here? Is it bad?”

“I think people are withholding judgment.”

And the moment they were withholding that judgment over, Felicity realized, was here. She’d dressed carefully because she knew eyes would be on her, but one look at the assistants down the hall in Applied Sciences made her feel like she’d worn footie pajamas. She actually felt her confidence trying to melt away through the soles of her Mary Jane heels.

Diggle bumped her shoulder. “Remember, you’re not actually married to the guy. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Felicity sighed. “But they do these amazing potlucks and I’m going to miss those.”

“I can do an amazing potluck,” Diggle said.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well, no, but I can order an amazing lunch from the Big Belly. Isn’t that better?”

“I’ll only mourn the Swedish meatballs for a little while, I promise.” A glance into Oliver’s office showed that he was deep in conversation with Isabel, so Felicity moved to her desk. Diggle brought a chair over instead of perching on the edge of her desk. She tilted her head and gave him a considering look. “John Diggle, are you trying to be my bodyguard right now?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Felicity pursed her lips as she keyed in the code to check her messages. “Sure you don’t. Though I am surprised you didn’t tag along to see Officer Lance with me this morning.”

“That’s because Sara was tailing you, not me.” Diggle took a sip of coffee, the corners of his lips curling upward at her indignant noise. “You think we’re going to let you wander alone right now with the paparazzi bugging you?”

“I was going to a police station. Theoretically, it’s one of the safest places in the city.” Felicity paused. “Well, any city but ours. If you also don’t regularly break the law on behalf of vigilante justice. Which is why I said theoretically.”

“And how is Officer Lance taking the news?”

Felicity grimaced. “I don’t think we should expect a wedding gift from him.”

“Shame. He probably had some really soft hand towels picked out for the two of you.”

For a second, they shared a skeptical look—and Felicity broke it by laughing so hard she had to clutch the arms of her chair to keep upright. Diggle chuckled until they both turned and saw Isabel Rochev standing in the doorway, one hand on her hip and an unimpressed expression firmly in place.

Felicity was out of her chair like a shot. “Isa—Miss Rochev. Hi.”

“Miss Smoak. Or is that Mrs. Queen now? I see you finally made it into work.”

“I authorized Felicity’s time off.” Oliver came up behind her, his jaw tight. “Nothing pressing this morning.”

“I’m sure,” Isabel said. 

“It’s, um, it’s still Smoak,” Felicity said. “I’m not taking his name.”

“How very twenty-first century woman of you.” Isabel’s smirk bit through her last nerve, but Felicity gritted her teeth and bore down on the annoyance. “Congratulations appear to be in order. You can’t imagine the frenzy you’ve caused around this place. They’re all waiting to see what kind of ring Oliver Queen would give his secretary.”

“Executive assistant,” Oliver said. “And now wife. Unfortunately, it’s in the shop, getting cleaned.”

“Yes, we don’t want it dirty for its big moment,” Felicity said and she could feel words bubbling up at the back of her throat, but as ever, she remained powerless to stop them. “Want it to shine for the spotlight and all because there is one. A ring, I mean. There’s totally a ring. It’s very real and pretty—Oliver has great taste. In fact, we’re picking it out—I mean up, I totally meant up—today!”

Isabel tilted her head, eyes narrowing. For a second, Felicity entertained the notion that Isabel was an oncoming car and she was the frightened animal caught in its headlights, but the business executive blinked and the predatory expression vanished. “I look forward to seeing it,” Isabel said. “Perhaps tomorrow? We’ll have lunch to celebrate your marriage. On me, of course.”

And before Felicity could come up with a proper excuse to get out of what really was her own personal version of hell, Isabel simpered and walked away, hips swaying.

Oliver let out a long breath and gave Felicity an expectant look.

“I know, I know. That…was poorly handled.” Felicity scowled and wanted to kick something. “Great, now I have to put a rush-order on a ring. Well, rings. You need a wedding ring, too.”

“And you should probably have an engagement ring,” Diggle said.

She twisted to look at him. “But there wasn’t an engagement.”

“You married a rich guy. You’ll need some bling.”

Felicity wrinkled her nose. “As long as it’s not too big. I still need that finger for the S key.” She dropped back into her chair with a sigh. “Sorry. I messed this up. Again. I’ll look around and see if there any jewelers willing to ship special if we throw scads of—oh, wait. I can fix this.”

Oliver’s eyebrows went up. “You can?”

“I have this friend, she—wait, what’s that look for? I have lots of friends. You two need to realize that I have a life outside of you.” Felicity sat at the desk and began to type, calling up her contacts program, which would autodial for her. “Anyway, she works at Venit Jewelers downtown and she designs her own stuff on the side. I think she can hook us up.”

“Discreetly?”

“You have to ask?”

Felicity reached for her phone, but Oliver put a hand over it to stop her. “About the rings,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Probably something tasteful?”

“Really? Because I was going to go for a gaudy eighteen-karat myself.” She had to smile when he gave her an exasperated look. “It’s okay. Raquel’s great. You let me take care of this, you scoot off and do CEO things.”

“Scoot?” Diggle asked.

“Yes, scoot. That applies to everybody in this room that is male. Scoot along, gentlemen.” She made a little shooing motion with her fingers. Diggle and Oliver exchanged one of their usual looks over her head, but they made themselves scarce. She took a deep breath and stared at the phone. She’d fallen out of touch with Raquel; calling out of the blue with a favor seemed rather mercenary, but given the extraordinary circumstances, it wasn’t like she had much of a choice. So she took a deep breath and picked up the receiver. “Raquel? Hi, it’s Felicity. How’s it going? Seen the news lately?”

Four hours later, she watched her friend flip the sign on the front door of Venit Jewelers to CLOSED. “You are really saving our butts here, Raquel,” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Not too often I get customers with the good kind of intrigue.” Raquel Valenzuela had always reminded Felicity a bit of a stick bug, even though Felicity knew from experience the woman had an impressive wellspring of muscular strength. She had the boniest wrists in existence and her sweater hung off a frame that Felicity had once called Yzma-like (Raquel had laughed and had dressed as Yzma that Halloween), but her makeup, clothing, and jewelry were, as ever, spot-on. She aimed a smile at Felicity and Oliver as she came back behind the counter. “Usually it’s men slipping in to buy their mistresses a bit of the shiny.”

“I have couriers that do that,” Oliver said, and Felicity belatedly realized that she should probably elbow him for that. When she did, he laughed. “Not that I would ever do that to my…Felicity…”

Raquel gave Felicity a questioning look: _this_ is the guy you married?

“Just keep in mind that I’m the one in charge of erasing your search history,” Felicity told Oliver.

“Guess we should find a really good ring, then.”

“I can help with that.” Raquel reached into one of the showcases and pulled out a velvet-covered tray. “When I got your call, I went around and picked the rings that I thought would be most ‘you.’ It was actually pretty fun. I don’t work the floor much. They’ve usually got me in the back.”

“I’m glad we could help you out, and—ooh.” Felicity picked up the ring closest to her, an Art Deco halo design and spent a moment just admiring the shine. 

“And it begins,” Raquel said, smiling.

Felicity poked around the tray, cooing at the rings she liked. She could feel Oliver’s eyes on her, possibly assessing her, but she didn’t care. He’d seen her get excited over the computer systems before. It wasn’t a stretch that she could feel the same way about jewelry. “This is so pretty, Raquel. Are these your work?”

“Some of them.”

“They’re awesome.” Felicity turned to Oliver. “Raquel and I met at MIT, she’s brilliant.” 

“I’m not the brilliant one here,” Raquel said.

“Yes, you are, you were the one that dragged me out to go shopping for ‘real clothes’ so I wouldn’t live my life in hoodies and yoga pants.”

“Yoga pants have their time and place, Felicity Smoak, and that time and place are not ‘all the time’ and ‘everywhere.’”

“But they’re super-comfortable, and my ass always looks…” Felicity trailed off and flushed when she remembered that Oliver was standing at her side like a silent shadow.

“Aw, it’s cute that you still blush in front of your husband,” Raquel said, laughing.

Was she forever going to jolt at the word husband? Felicity covered up a scowl by focusing on the rings. “Whatever, my ass looks great in yoga pants.”

Raquel squinted at Oliver. “No comment from you?”

Oliver held his hands up. “I’m just here to pay for everything.”

“Well, as long as you realize it early, I guess. How is it you two met, again?” 

“She fixed my laptop.” Oliver’s smile actually seemed a little softer than usual, Felicity noticed, but she didn’t look directly at him. He shrugged. “I’d be lost without her.”

“That’s the truth.” Felicity tried on a ring with a diamond solitaire and snorted under her breath. It was the ring that society would expect from a wife of Oliver Queen, but it looked a little boring. And it was _her_ finger the ring was sitting on for the next six months. She pulled the ring off and set it back on the tray. “Is there anything with, hmm, an emerald?”

Oliver coughed.

Raquel shook her head. “You don’t want an emerald. Too soft. Maybe a sapphire or topaz. Personally, I’m thinking topaz with the colors you like.”

“You think?”

“I’ve got a really excellent one I designed, actually. I made it for somebody else, but the relationship fell through—dude’s fault, of course. I’ll go get it.”

“I thought MIT was all computer sciences and math,” Oliver said when Raquel was out of earshot.

Felicity picked up a ring to squint at it, wishing she’d paid more attention to that gemology course she’d listened to while working on the operating system she’d designed for the Foundry. “Oh, she was a Mathematics major,” she said, “though, you know, MIT has a wide variety.”

“And she’s working in a jewelry shop?”

“Gotta do what you love. It works out, though, with her being willing to resize the rings today so we’ve got them for tomorrow.”

“All in the name of fooling the woman trying to take over my company. I…”

When he trailed off, Felicity turned sharply. Her situational awareness wasn’t the greatest, but she liked to think she was learning. Oliver wasn’t poised for danger, though. Instead, he’d gone still, his gaze trained on a whimsical metal rack shaped like a little tree.

Felicity stepped closer. There were several little crystalline bird necklaces dangling from the tree’s branches. The designer appeared to be local, as the “Canary Tweets” card at the base of the tree would suggest. “Oliver?”

He jerked and swiveled to face her, the automatic Oliver Queen smile in place. “What was that?”

“You okay?”

Before he could answer, Raquel came back with one of her custom ring boxes—Felicity had spent far too much time on her Etsy page, she realized, that she recognized the box alone—in hand. “I should have thought of this earlier,” Raquel said. She set the box on the counter and opened it with a little flourish of one hand. “I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I really think you’re going to like this one.”

“Oh my god,” Felicity said, her eyes going wide.

* * *

“You’re just going to keep playing with that all night, aren’t you?” Oliver asked as he handed over a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone.

“I can’t help it. It’s such a pretty ring.” But she made a point to take the ice cream with her left hand so she would stop worrying the ring with her thumb. She’d always been a fidgety person, but rings had never been something she’d played with before. Of course, rings had never really had a _meaning_ before, even if technically, this one didn’t either. It was just part of what she was beginning to consider the undercover experience of publicly being married to Oliver. 

Raquel had refitted a filigreed antique band with a cushion cut topaz that she declared “just within the tasteful range.” Though Felicity would have objected to the karat count on both the ring and the gem, Oliver had simply pulled out his black Amex right around the time she’d started to drool. They’d taken a little longer to find a suitable wedding band for him (thankfully, the ring Raquel had picked out for her came in a set: wedding band _and_ engagement ring). She’d measured their ring fingers and had told them to come back in a couple of hours, and the rings would be ready.

Felicity still wasn’t sure which one of them had found actually slipping on the rings for the first time more traumatic. She had her suspicions that it wasn’t her, though Oliver stayed quiet about it the entire time, of course.

She wished he’d say _something_ about it, or the fact that he’d been staring at the bird necklaces, or anything, really, if only to keep her from trying to fill the silence with chatter so much. Either way, they were due at the Foundry soon. Neither really wanted to go back to their shared apartment until they absolutely had to, so Oliver had suggested ice cream.

“I know it’s not traditional,” she said, licking up the dribbling trail of mint-chip around the edge of the cone. “But I don’t know, I like it a lot. And Raquel liked the commission money a lot. Plus, if the marriage were real, having a ring with fewer karats means you have something to build upon for future events like promotions and things like that, work wife.”

“I’m so glad you’re looking out for me in my fake future, work husband,” Oliver said as he twisted his vanilla and chocolate swirl cone around to lick the other side. 

They left Bobbie’s Ice Cream Parlor together and started walking back to Oliver’s car, which was still parked in front of Venit Jewelers a couple of blocks away. After a long and miserably cold winter, the freezing temperatures had slowly released their grip on Starling City, letting the days tentatively warm up once more. Felicity was grateful mostly for Oliver and Sara’s sake—especially Sara’s, as the corset kind of left a lot of her torso bare—but she couldn’t deny that she’d missed walking down to the ice cream parlor a few blocks from Queen Consolidated on her lunch break. 

“Hey, speaking of your, um, future, fake or otherwise.” Felicity took a deep breath. “I know it’s not really my place to ask, but are you and Sara okay? I was a little surprised she wasn’t there this morning.” 

“I don’t think she’ll be staying over for breakfast much,” Oliver said in a tight voice.

Felicity immediately felt her heart plummet. “Oh, no. I didn’t come between you, did I? Because I can go to the press, let them know it was all a mistake.”

“ _After_ I put several thousand dollars on my card?” Oliver asked.

“I can pay you back.”

“Felicity, it’s okay.” Oliver studied his ice cream for a moment. “There were things we needed to work through. Separately, it appears. Maybe I should consider this whole thing a blessing.”

Felicity wrinkled her nose. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“We’re…taking a break.”

“Oliver, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not you,” Oliver said. “Don’t worry about—”

This time he didn’t trail off so much as stop in the middle of his sentence and in the middle of the sidewalk. “Oliver?” Felicity asked, tensing. 

He crouched to tie his shoe. “Don’t look behind you.”

Of course she immediately did. “Oh, crap,” she said, whipping back around.

One corner of his lips moved upward slightly. “Subtle. See anything?”

“No, nothing. Is something there? Did somebody follow us?” She hoped it wasn’t the paparazzi. Sure, they had rings, but it was a giant hassle to try and walk around with people shouting their names and begging for a quote. “It’s not the _Daily Star_ , is it? Gosh, I hate that rag.”

“It’s not reporters.” Oliver looked grim as he rose to his feet and tossed his ice cream cone in the trash. “But we’re definitely being followed.” 


	5. In Which the Women in Oliver’s Life Give a Lot of Thought to Something He Wishes They Wouldn’t

“Followed? As in _followed_ -followed?” Felicity’s eyes went wide behind her glasses. She’d frozen with her ice cream halfway to her mouth so that the scoop of mint-chip kind of quavered in the air. “If it’s not reporters, who is it?”

“I don’t know. They don’t have cameras.” He chanced a look over his shoulder. The two men were trying to be inconspicuous. They’d worn the right clothes for it—nothing flashy, all shades of brown, blue, and business casual—and their jackets were too loose for him to properly identify any weaponry. Neither noticed his attention, so Oliver doubted they were ex-military. He looked around, memorizing the shops and alleyways in the area. At least they were on _his_ turf. He’d protected the city too well not to know all of its nooks and crannies. “Do me a favor?”

“W-what? Sure. What do you need?”

“About fifty feet ahead, there’s a boutique. Look in the window and point to something, okay? I’m going to go inside.”

Her eyes went even wider. “And leave me alone with the people following us?”

“Just for a minute.”

“Which ones are they?”

Oliver pulled out his phone and pretended to check his text messages so he could covertly take a picture over his shoulder. “Those two,” he said, holding the phone out to Felicity.

She took it and gave him her phone instead. “I’ll run a facial recognition search,” she said, her voice businesslike. In a few taps, she had a program running on his phone that he wasn’t even aware had existed. The mint-chip ice cream started to drip down the edge of her cone. “Which boutique, did you say? Lefty’s?”

Oliver squinted at the sign. “Yes.”

“You go do what you need to, I’ll see what I can find.” Obligingly, she stopped at the window he’d indicated and made the exact same cooing noise he’d just heard her make over several engagement rings. “Oh, look at that…um, thingamajig. Isn’t it the cutest?”

It was an ugly stuffed dog that looked unfortunate enough to have actually lived through the rise of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Roman Empire. “Yeah…honey,” Oliver said, and Felicity wrinkled her nose. “It’s adorable. Do you want it?”

“Do you mind? I’m starting a collection—of really ugly-ass stuffed animals.” She said the last bit under her breath.

“Let’s buy it, then. Stay here, I’ll just be a minute,” Oliver said, and she nodded. 

Inside the boutique, he glanced at the bored teenager behind the counter. “You have a bathroom in the back?” he asked, and kept walking through the aisles of chintzy knickknacks without waiting for an answer. As he suspected, the bathroom was across a small hallway from an exit. He ignored the sign that the exit wasn’t for customer use and stepped into the alley behind the shop right as a text from Felicity arrived: _they’re hanging back. Put your earpiece in_.

He fished the earpiece out of his pocket as he sprinted past the dumpsters. “Got anything?”

“Still running. They’re about half a block back still. They haven’t moved,” Felicity said. Oliver cut a right and ran past the backs of three stores before he cut another right, wobbling a little on the turn. He corrected and took an alley that would bring him out onto the main street behind the two.

“Are they near an alley?” Oliver asked.

“Yeah, about five feet away from—huh.”

Oliver skidded to a stop. “Felicity?”

“No, no, I’m okay. Just matched one of the faces—Cameron Wernsworth. Ring any bells?”

“No.” Oliver checked around the edge of the alley. One of the men pretended to check sports scores on his phone while his buddy chatted at him. They were both facing Felicity down the street and as far as Oliver could tell, they hadn’t noticed him.

“Pulling up his profile. He’s wearing the blue jacket and he’s a…Oliver, he’s a private investigator. Why would a private investigator be following us?”

Oliver studied Cameron Wernsworth as the man continued to check his phone. Right handed, didn’t look like could hold his own in a fight. “I could beat it out of him.”

“But what if he’s following Oliver Queen and not the Arrow? You’re not exactly known for your MMA skills as Oliver.”

Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose. She had a point.

“I can look into his financials when we get back to the Foundry or—no, wait, I forgot, I can do that here, just a tiny bit of tweaking.” Felicity kept muttering, too softly for the comm to fully pick it up, so Oliver held his position, plastered to the alley wall. Finally, he heard her curse. “I can’t look it into it here, Oliver. But there’s no way to know which, um, you they’re after, except…”

“If it’s a private investigator, that’s not somebody you put on the Arrow’s tail,” Oliver said. He sighed. It looked like he was making the jog back to the shop, and his head was already beginning to ache, a sign that he hadn’t had enough water. “Stay put.”

It took him a full thirty seconds longer than it should have to sneak into the shop through the back entrance, which told him he needed to put some time in on lock-picking. Once inside, he scooped up the stupid little stuffed animal Felicity had pointed out and brought it to the counter.

“Help you find anything else?” the cashier asked, and he gave her the fake playboy smile.

Outside the shop, he could tell Felicity had begun to start in on her panic cycle—though Wernsworth and his unnamed associate hadn’t moved any closer—from the way her entire body jerked when he came outside. “Sorry it took so long,” he said, holding up the stuffed dog.

“Oh, Oliver, that’s exactly what I wanted, how did you—agh.” She coughed when the toy kicked up a cloud of dust. “Oh god, I’m about to have an allergy attack.”

“Why don’t I carry that for you, sweetie?”

“Please.” She practically threw the beast at him. In an undertone, she asked, “Sweetie?”

“Honey…bunch?” Oliver asked.

Felicity only grimaced. “We’re really terrible at this fake-married thing.”

“We’re new at it. It’ll take time,” Oliver said, but he wasn’t paying much attention. He was more interested in seeing what the men would do once he and Felicity reached his car. But she maybe had a point, so he reached over and grabbed Felicity’s hand.

She looked up at him in surprise.

“Just in case,” Oliver said, and she nodded, her throat working. He insisted on holding the door open for her (“Though that’s kind of sexist, really, Oliver, I know how to operate a door, I promise.”) when they reached his car, mostly so he could watch the two tailing them climb into a late model sedan halfway down the block. 

In the car, Felicity immediately tossed his phone in his lap, grabbed her phone back from him, and began to dial. “Who are you calling?” Oliver asked.

“Sara. She’s usually mid-work-out by this point and she can access the computers for me and—Sara, hey! We’re in a bit of a bind. Can you log on and run a check on something for me?”

Oliver kept an eye on the sedan behind them as Felicity walked Sara through the process of illegally spying on somebody’s bank records. They kept a reasonable bubble of space between his car and theirs, which told him they’d obviously tailed somebody before, but if they suspected he was the Arrow, they were being rather obvious about it.

“They’re after Oliver Queen,” he said after a minute. “Or they’re a decoy.”

“If I ever have to write a list of things I find incredibly not-comforting, the term ‘they’re a decoy’ goes at the top of that list. Yeah, Sara, that’s the program we need. Okay, check the account tab at the top, yeah, that’s the one, see if there have been any large payments from—Queen Consolidated? But that doesn’t make any sense.” Felicity held the receiver against her shoulder. “Sara says a pretty sizable deposit came from QC, Oliver. Neither of us authorized that.”

Oliver’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Isabel,” he said. “She’s onto us.”

“For the fake marriage or for the vigilante stuff?”

“Given the timing?”

“Point. Hey, Sara, thanks for looking that up. Hold on a second.” Felicity glanced at the street signs outside and then at Oliver. “What do you want to do? Is there a way to lose them without letting them know we ditched them on purpose?”

“It’s tricky.” Oliver wanted to hit the steering wheel. Isabel had hired private investigators. Great. Just great. More scrutiny they didn’t need.

To his surprise, Felicity touched his wrist. “Is your head okay?”

“What?”

“You’ve got the ‘I’ve got a headache’ look. I mean, it’s similar to the ‘you’re talking way too much technobabble for me to follow’ look but I’ve become something of an expert on the grimacing micro-expressions you make. Are you feeling okay?”

His instinct was to lie, but it was Felicity and he was beginning to discover there wasn’t much of a point in trying to lie to her. So he shrugged. “The herbs. They take a couple of days to normalize.”

“Magic always comes at a cost,” Felicity said, giving him a sage nod.

“They’re not magic.”

She waved him off. “Sara? We need to sell our cover a little bit.”

“What are you doing?” Oliver asked.

She held up a finger. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said in reply to something Sara had said. “I think another night off would be good for everybody. Or Digg or Roy can put on the suit and run around for a little while. It’ll really cement the idea that Oliver’s not the Arrow. We’ll be fine, we’ll order in and I can rearrange his kitchen cabinets some more. Thanks for understanding. You have a good night, too. Call if you need anything.”

When she hung up, Oliver leveled an unimpressed look her way. “We’re taking a night off?”

“We’re playing it safe and giving those bozos some really boring stuff to report back to Isabel, which is basically the best revenge I can come up with. Sara says hi, by the way.”

Oliver gave her a look.

“Okay, she didn’t actually say to tell you hi, but the sentiment was there. Do you think I gave it away with my rather impressive verbal vomit about the rings? Isabel, I mean. Not Sara. Sara’s in on it and—ugh, I’m done talking.”

Oliver tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, considering his options. This was why he preferred the motorcycle, as annoying as Starling City’s weather made it. In his car, he had fewer options for evading a tail. “I don’t think so,” he said. “She’s smart, and she’ll have realized what the media coverage has done for our bid to take the company back from her.”

“It sucks playing chess when your opponent is the devil.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, come on. I’ve made my feelings about that woman perfectly clear. And for some reason I’m having lunch with her tomorrow. Just her, me, and my big mouth.”

“You’ll be okay,” Oliver said. Behind them, the private investigators switched lanes. “So what are your big plans for our night off, then?”

Felicity chewed on her thumb. “Well, half of me is terrible and has pointed out that we really do need to make a public appearance somewhere, especially now that we’ve got these.” She held up her left hand so that he could see the ring. “But the rest of me really just wants to go home, crawl into my pajamas, and watch something dumb on Netflix, which is the best alternative to crawling under a rock and hiding that there is these days.”

Oliver thought about it. “How dumb?”

* * *

Three hours later, Oliver finished his last push-up, but since Felicity had her heels resting on his back, her feet crossed at the ankles, he stayed propped up. 

“You make me feel like the laziest person on the planet, just so you know,” she said without looking away from the TV.

He smiled at the floor. “I’ll put the coffee table back in a minute.”

“You sure you don’t have another fifty push-ups in you first? Because I can hold onto this. And I just wanted to check.” She held up her glass of water.

“You could have put that on my back, too.” His smile widened. “Wouldn’t have spilled a drop.”

“No, but I probably would have trying to grab it and then you’re all schvitz-y and wet. Here.” She set her feet on the floor and held out the water to him. When he tried to wave it off, she wiggled the glass. “Weren’t you just telling me you still had a headache from those magical herbs?”

“They’re not magical.” He took the glass and pushed himself to his feet, draining it as he headed for the laptop she’d left running on the kitchen counter.

“Do we want to start another episode of this, or are you good?” Felicity called. She had crawled into her pajamas almost from the first moment they’d arrived back at his—their apartment. They were cute, bright blue pants with smiling cupcakes and donuts on them and an equally bright orange tank top. The fuzzy green socks, though, he had to admit were his favorite part of the ensemble. 

“If you want. I’m not paying attention.” He called up the camera angle from the couch, sighing internally. Isabel had apparently paid Wernsworth and his associates to sit and watch his place all night.

“Your loss,” Felicity said, but he didn’t hear the poppy jangle of the show’s opening theme start up, so apparently she’d decided against it.

He grabbed a new glass water for her and made his way back to the couch, perching on the arm. Felicity remained curled up on one of the cushions, her head resting on the opposite arm of the couch and her tablet forgotten in front of her. It sat among a forest of take-out boxes (she’d won the coin toss for dim sum), ready in case Sara or Diggle called, but ultimately abandoned for the evening.

Felicity Smoak took her Netflix marathons seriously.

“Do you want to be out there right now, putting arrows in people?” she asked.

He paused. “Putting arrows in people?”

“You’ve looked at that surveillance footage four or five times in the past two hours. And then there’s all of the random, um, calisthenics you’ve been doing.”

“I don’t like being watched,” Oliver said. “But I’m okay taking a night off, even if it’s been a few days and the City’s getting a little restless. The others have got this.”

“Good.” Felicity blew out a long breath. “That makes me feel less guilty.”

“Guilty?”

“Yeah. For wanting to hide.” She had her left hand curled up under her face and he could see her worrying her new rings with her thumb. “After the looks I got in the lobby and facing Isabel and Detective Lance, I kind of needed all of this.”

“A dumb Netflix marathon?” Oliver said.

She smiled at him. “You know, I feel like you’re kind of getting to see a peek into my life now instead of vice versa, only it’s not nearly as exciting as dressing up in green leather and facing bad guys. Ta-daaa.” She waved a hand at her ensemble.

He couldn’t stop the grin. “For you, Felicity, I’d put up with a lot worse than a dumb Netflix marathon.”

“Aw, you say the sweetest things. So I was thinking and—oh, hold on, that’s me.” She picked up the tablet that had just chirped with a notification and swiped the screen. It only took a few seconds for her to go from Felicity-colored to dead pale.

“What?” He was on his feet in a second. “What is it? Is somebody hurt?”

“N-no, everybody’s fine. Sorry. I just—” Felicity held up the tablet so that he could see a garishly bright cartoon of a bride and groom, only somebody had pasted his face over the groom’s and Felicity’s face over the bride’s. They both wore cartoon crowns. And underneath the drawing was the text: “‘Congratulations-on-getting-impulsively-married-in-a-foreign-country-without-me’ doesn’t fit on a flyer, so HAPPY ZERO ANNIVERSARY TO THE NEW MR. AND MRS. QUEEN. Party at Verdant on Friday. Be there.”

“Is _everybody_ going to call me Mrs. Queen? Mrs. Queen is your mom. And she is not my biggest fan—or even my fan at all if we’re going to get technical.” 

“I think that’s probably just going to be something that’s just going to happen a lot,” Oliver said. “Sorry.”

She sighed. “I thought we were done saying sorry?”

“You expected that to last how long?” Oliver asked.

For a second, he spotted the slight dimple in her left cheek as her smile appeared, but it wavered and died. “So. Lunch with Isabel and then the Zero Anniversary party in the same week. Yay. But that’s okay. Handling it. I’m handling it, I can do this. We can do this. It’s just a party, no big deal.”

“Yes,” Oliver said, since he wasn’t sure what else to say.

“This Friday is just a party and tomorrow is just a lunch. Okay, it’s a lunch with a woman who has actually seen you naked, and I have to get that thought of my head before tomorrow or it will come flying out of my mouth at ludicrous speed.” Felicity blew out a long breath and tilted her head back against a cushion. “Not that I, you know, think about you naked. Just saying, she’s seen you naked and theoretically, I’m married to you and I haven’t—wait, no, I have seen you naked. Never mind, carry on.”

“Hold up.” Oliver jerked to look at her. “What?”

“You were unconscious. We had to get your pants off because you got gashed up pretty bad and—it’s not a big deal.” Felicity waved a hand.

Inexplicably, he wanted to cover himself, which was ridiculous because he was already wearing sweatpants and that wasn’t usually a reaction he had to announcements like hers. He felt the skin around his upper chest and neck growing warm. “It was medical, then.”

“Entirely—I mean, it was impressive, I won’t lie. You know. Um. It—your, um, thing. But we were a little more concerned about the fact that you’d possibly nicked an artery.”

Oliver frowned. “Nicked an arter—oh, this is from when I took out the Colstone Killer.” 

“You did not notice you woke up not in your leathers, right?” Felicity asked.

“Yeah, but I…thought Diggle had taken care of that.”

Felicity’s eyebrows went high. “So you’re okay with Diggle seeing your junk while saving your life, but not me?”

“You know what?” Oliver cleared his throat. “I’m going to go to bed.”

“Oh.” Felicity frowned. “Okay. Good night, Oliver.”

“G’night.” As he walked down the hall, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked the screen, peering at it suspiciously when Sara’s name flashed at the top. The message scrolled across the screen: _talked thea out of calling it balls and chain party bc ur not a dick. shes not convinced but ur welcome_

He sent back a brief thank you text and briefly pondered the thought that for once in his life, he really wasn’t comfortable with so many women thinking about his dick. Marriage evidently did change a person. The thought almost made him smile, though he sobered he settled atop his bedspread with the laptop he’d nicked from the kitchen counter on the way by (Felicity would probably scold him in the morning). If men watching them from the car outside weren’t what they appeared to be, he would be the first to know.


	6. In Which the Beans are Spilled

“Wait, wait, wait.” Diggle caught Felicity in the elevator, jogging a little to make it through the closing doors on time.

She tilted her head. “I thought I was going to drive myself to this lunch.”

“No, I said I wasn’t driving you.” He gave her the enigmatic smile, the one that usually made her poke him until he confessed whatever evil thought he’d been hoarding. Felicity wasn’t entirely sure others understood how much of a smartass John Diggle could be, though she’d had plenty of exposure to it in the months Oliver had been finding himself on the island again. “You’ve got a driver. It’s just not me.”

“You’re being way overprotective. I have two different kinds of pepper spray in my bag and they’re just private investigators anyway. I’ll stay in public.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Oh, I have no doubt you can take care of yourself. But, hey, if we’re going through this charade, appearances need to be kept up.” The elevator doors dinged open. “Felicity Smoak-Queen, meet your new driver.”

Felicity poked him for the name, turned, and blinked. “What is that hat?” she asked.

“Don’t like it? I think it’s fancy.” Sara tweaked the black peaked cap so that it hung at a roguish angle. The hat wasn’t the only thing unusual about her wardrobe. She wore a suit similar to Diggle’s, tailored perfectly, with her hair in a demure ponytail so that the blonde hung in a straight line down her back. “Mrs. Queen, your chariot awaits.”

“You two are hilarious,” Felicity said. Diggle gave a little wave and stayed on the elevator, but Felicity fell into step next to Sara. Ignoring all of the stares she drew in the lobby took some concentrated effort. “You realize that drivers don’t actually wear hats like that anymore.”

“I think it’s jaunty. How are you holding up?”

“Hmm. I don’t think I’ve actually gotten any work done for either half of Oliver’s personality in a week, several members of the board want to take Oliver and me out to dinner, the ladies down the hall in Applied Sciences sent over a wedding gift—matching his and hers mugs, mine’s pink—and I’m pretty sure Isabel Rochev is going to verbally gut me and leave my head on a pike for all of the restaurant to see.” She’d showed off her ring to about fifty people already, mostly to cooing or mixed reactions. While it was kind of amazing to be the center of attention, she could feel her nerves beginning to frazzle apart at the edges. She’d been looking forward to her drive to the country club where she was meeting Isabel for lunch, as it would finally give her some alone time.

Sara nudged her with an elbow as they moved down the hallway to the parking garage. “If Isabel brings a broadsword to lunch, I’ll defend your honor.”

“Does she need a broadsword, though? That’s the thing I wonder about. Like, something about her makes me think she might be able to decapitate me with the power of her icy glare alone.”

“That’s easy to fix.” Sara held her thumbs up, pushed them forward, and made a popping sound with her mouth.

“Gross,” Felicity said. She climbed into the front seat of the Town Car when Sara unlocked it, and gave her friend a look. “I’m not sitting in the back.”

“You sit in the back when Diggle drives you.” Sara put the car into reverse.

“Yeah, but I’m not usually poking at Diggle to figure out how he’s doing after a break-up. I mean, I _would_ do that, but he and Lyla seem okay right now.”

“Okay describes me as well, Nosy McNoserson,” Sara said.

Felicity levelled the same look she’d given Oliver that morning when he’d claimed he didn’t know where her surveillance laptop had gone for eight hours at her. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Sara jerked a shoulder. “Really. It was a long time coming, and the timing worked out. How’s Oliver doing?”

“Can I wear your hat?” Felicity asked. When Sara passed it over, she propped it up on her head. She decided not to mention the time she’d caught Oliver staring at the canary charms in the jewelry store. “He’s moping, but I think he’s okay. I mean, he’s in that mode where he’s clearly working through his feelings by working out a lot. Which is why his—our coffee table is still by the TV and not where it usually goes.”

“Okay?” Sara gave her a puzzled look.

“Long story. So I didn’t come between you two, right? Oliver assures me I haven’t, but I wanted to make sure with you. Because it’s not real. We’re basically roommates that everybody thinks are married now, and it’s completely cool with me and everything, whoever Oliver sees.”

“Is it?” 

Now it was Felicity’s turn to look puzzled. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Sara hit the blinker and entered the left turn lane. “Just checking. But no, it wasn’t you. It was me.”

“Wow, so I apparently don’t even have to be in a relationship to get the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech,” Felicity said.

Sara grinned. “Shut up, you’re married now, I don’t think that counts anymore.”

Felicity wrinkled her nose.

Twenty minutes later, when she gave her name to the maître d’, she bounced Sara’s question around in her mind, turning it over and over. _Is it?_ What had she meant? It had sounded like simple curiosity, but she was concerned. Did Sara think there was more going on with Oliver and Felicity? Felicity had been completely serious: for all intents and purposes, she and Oliver were now roommates that sometimes had to resort to PDA to keep up a lie to the public. Sure, he was cute, but Felicity had realized very early on in her days at Team Arrow that she wasn’t Oliver’s type, and maybe that was a good thing, no matter how much the thought disappointed her.

She followed the hostess to the table with dread gnawing her stomach lining to pieces. Of course, Isabel had arrived first, but three ladies sat at the table as well. Felicity recognized all of them from the various work functions she had attended as Oliver’s EA, which was why her stomach sank all the way to the bottom of her really cute Jimmy Choos. Not only had Isabel ambushed her with a lunch, but it was now a lunch with the wives of every single board member that hated Oliver. Felicity dug her thumbnail into the skin just below her new wedding ring.

“Felicity! I hope you don’t mind that I invited some of the girls along. They really wanted to see the ring.” Isabel’s smile was entirely false. “You know how we get.”

“Of course,” she said. If the Arrow could face the Bronze Tiger and Count Vertigo, she could face a few she-wolves in Dolce & Gabbana. “The more, the merrier. Mrs. Horrowitz, how are you? And Mrs. Wright, it’s so good to see you again. How’s your son, um, Benjamin, wasn’t it?”

Though Mrs. Wright looked pleasantly surprised that Felicity had remembered that detail (like she hadn’t Google stalked all of the members of the board, please), her greeting was met with cool looks from all of the rest.

“Well,” Isabel said when the pleasantries had been exchanged. “Let’s not pussyfoot around. Let’s see the ring.”

“The wh—oh, right, the ring. Here it is.” Feeling foolish, Felicity held out her left hand across the table. Mrs. Wright cooed appreciatively as her hand was grabbed, but Mrs. Forrester sniffed. “He picked it out himself. He’s such a sweetheart. I feel like he really knows me, you know?”

Isabel smirked, though Felicity had seen her look falter when she’d first lifted her hand. The private investigators must have caught their trail _after_ the ring shop. “Bit small, isn’t it?”

“That’s not a diamond. What is that?”

“What’s the carat size on this gem, dear? You could have done better. Don’t you know the boy is loaded?”

“Oh, hush, Vivian. Everybody knows you take the small gems when you’re a secretary, and then you push for the larger stones after you catch him with the nanny.”

“I, um, isn’t that a bit premature?” Felicity could actually feel herself going pale. “I mean, nannies? We only got married a couple of weeks ago.”

The last thing she expected was for all of the women at the table to go quiet and give her confused looks. They glanced at each other uneasily and then Mrs. Wright leaned toward Felicity. “You mean to tell us you’re not?”

“Not what?” Felicity asked.

Isabel’s chuckle managed to be indulgent, demeaning, and kind of twinkly at the same time. “The ladies have a theory that you married Oliver Queen because he knocked you up and you got the wedding out of the way before you started showing.”

“Knocked…me up…” All of the blood rushed straight of Felicity’s head, filling her ears with a perilous whistling noise. The one rational part of her brain left pointed out that if she threw up all over the table like she kind of wanted to, that might only confirm the wife-wolves’ theory, so she managed to keep the rising gorge down. Pregnant? By Oliver? What the hell?

She was saved by an approaching waiter. Before he could even get his spiel out, Felicity took a deep breath and said, “I’m going to need to see your wine list right away, please.”

* * *

The wine helped. A mallet to the forehead or possibly a hit squad to take out her dining companions would have helped more, Felicity was sure, but she had to work with what resources she had, which was mostly texting Sara under the table. Of course, she’d had better ideas. _Everybody thinks Oliver got me pregnant_ had been met with _omg what hahahahahahahahahahahahaha_ and an emoji of a strawberry laughing.

“Helpful,” Felicity said twenty minutes later. She’d ducked out by pretending to take a call and now she was hiding in the bathroom, freshening up her makeup. Raquel had taken Felicity under her wing at MIT and had pointed out that makeup was a sort of artwork-armor. Liquid eyeliner, for example, proved to others that you could be fearless and Felicity needed that sort of bolstering armor right now. For forty-five minutes, passive-aggressive remarks about secretaries and inter-class marriage (like that was really a thing anymore. What was this, the Victorian era? Oliver was hardly the duke to her lowly farm-girl) had flown around like little blue balls on the racquetball courts their husbands all frequented. And that had been _before_ they’d all gotten a glass of wine in them and the claw-sheathes had officially come off. When they’d pointed out that if she wasn’t pregnant (oh god) and she’d made a good catch because Oliver didn’t just have money, he had _money_ , she’d kind of wanted to throw up right into the caviar.

“You know what?” she said to the bathroom mirror. “MIT doesn’t even _have_ an M-R-S degree. I actually _earned_ my Bachelor of Science without my daddy buying it for me, _and_ I was thinking about going back for my Master’s. I made the Dean’s List every semester and who the hell else at that table can say that? If I wanted to marry somebody for money, I could’ve found some orange dude from Mom’s work who wanted on-site technical help all the time. Ugh, ugh, ugh.”

She finished up with the eyeliner and stuffed the pen back in her purse. She’d dressed with care, one of her cutest dresses and her fanciest shoes, and she was well aware that her outfit was several thousand dollars cheaper than the others worn by the ladies at that table. There had been several digs about that as well. 

“It’s not real,” she said now. “Just remember that. Okay, Felicity? It’s not real, you’re not really married to him. You’re not actually a gold-digger. Six months or until Isabel’s gone, and you like Oliver, you do. He’s a nice guy. We can do this. Screw what they say. They’re idiots who wouldn’t know a semicolon from a bracket. What do they even matter?”

But when she tried to unclench her hands from the edge of the sink, her fingers shook. She had to get back out there and get dessert with the rest of those—she really didn’t like to use demeaning terms for women, it was just a personal thing, but they were harpies with their shrill voices and their beady eyes, and their veiled insults about her ring and her clothing.

“Just get through dessert, Smoak,” she told herself. “And you can—”

She broke off at the sound of a flushing toilet. The temperature in the room plummeted.

It dropped further still when the stall door opened to reveal Moira Queen.

Felicity froze like an animal cornered in headlights. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the faint, mocking laughter of karma. She’d known she would have to face Oliver’s mother at some point—it was pretty much inevitable—just like she’d had to face Thea and Sara and would have to meet Laurel (hopefully not in a dark alley), but a meeting in a bathroom when she’d already been picked apart by the vultures outside was just too much. 

And then it occurred to Felicity exactly what she’d just said, and for the first time in her life, she was knocked absolutely, astoundingly, and completely speechless. All of the saliva in her mouth dried up. She could do nothing but stare in horror when Moira walked up, calmly turned on the sink next to hers, and washed her hands without looking at Felicity once. She dried her hands with one of the little fancy hand towels and deposited it in the bin by the door.

“Uh,” Felicity finally managed to say. “Hi, Mrs. Queen.”

Moira gave her a reserved smile and paused by the door. Felicity had no idea what could possibly be going through her mind. “Perhaps next time you should check the stalls before your mental breakdown, dear.”

“Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely good advice. I, um…yes.” Felicity was pretty sure she looked like a bobble-head since her head was moving in something akin to an eternal nod. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Have a good lunch.” Moira gave her a final smile and left Felicity alone in the bathroom.

Felicity bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, squeezing her right hand because she could feel the ghost of carpal tunnel there whenever she panicked. Oliver’s mother had heard at least some of the truth (thank god her mouth wasn’t bigger because oh god). This was bad. This was very, very bad. 

Oliver’s phone went straight to voicemail. Belatedly, Felicity remembered that he had a meeting with some of the department heads, and she wanted to pound her forehead against the wall. But she couldn’t afford that right now, not when she’d already wasted too much time. If Isabel came and found her like this, the jig might be up. And Felicity had spent far too long panicking over being followed by private investigators to let Isabel win this easily. So she shoved all of the panic and worry aside, wiped at a stray eyelash on her cheek, and headed back to the table with her head held high.

“We were a little worried you’d try to escape through the window,” Mrs. Wright said when Felicity sat back down.

Felicity mustered up a smile. “The maître d’ caught me,” she said, and wanted to sink through the floor when not a single one of the ladies laughed at her joke. “Well, okay, actually, I just had to take a call. I’m so sorry. What did I miss?”

“Well, the ladies and I thought it might be good for the board members to throw a little bit of a soiree for you and your new sweetie,” Mrs. Horrowitz said. “Something elegant and…” She looked Felicity up and down. “Classy.”

“Sounds great,” Felicity said weakly. “You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to that.”

Before the next cutting remark could emerge from the wife-wolves, a throat cleared behind Felicity and she looked up to see Moira standing over her chair. Moira rested a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, hello, ladies. You look nice. Having a good lunch?”

It was interesting watching the demeanor of every single woman change. Gone were the sneers and condescending smiles. Felicity actually saw Mrs. Forrester go dead pale. Isabel’s change was the most interesting: for a split-second, the smug mask dropped away, leaving in its place a look of sheer, blinding hatred. She blinked and she was Isabel Rochev, business mogul, once more.

“Do you mind if I steal my daughter-in-law?” Moira asked. “We’ve not had a chance to catch up. Imagine my surprise when I looked up from my lunch with Marianna Talbot and saw her here. It must have been fate.”

The ladies assured her that no, it was perfectly fine, they were just finishing up the lunch, they’d had such a good time with Felicity. 

Of course they had.

“Of course.” Moira’s grip on Felicity’s shoulder tightened. The woman had crazy amounts of upper body strength—had that come from prison?—as she calmly pulled Felicity out of the chair by her shoulder alone. She nodded at the table. “Thanks, ladies. Gerard, please put their lunch on my tab.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the waiter said and Felicity let herself be pulled away before Isabel could argue about the check.

“Wow,” Felicity said as Moira released her grip. “That woman is _not_ your biggest fan.”

“You’ll find that the feeling is mutual. You look like you could use a drink.”

“You have no idea.” Though she felt a bit like she’d leapt out of the frying pan and straight into the fire, Felicity followed Moira into the other room in the country club restaurant, which held a bar that was for the most part empty. She took up the barstool next to Moira and wondered if the other woman could tell she was shaking a little. 

“The house white is surprisingly decent,” Moira said. “I believe Oliver mentioned at one point that you’re something of a connoisseur.”

“He did?”

“He claimed he needed one of our bottles of the ’82 Rotschild Lafite for a friend that dabbled in wine. I assume he meant you.”

It occurred to Felicity that she should probably play dumb, as Oliver had used that wine as an excuse to get Arrow-related knowledge out of her. So she cleared her throat and fidgeted in spite of herself. “Yes, he told me he had a bet going with a friend for a case of it and a bottle was mine if I helped him out. I’m sorry, did that come from your wine cellar?”

“With the recent news, I’d assumed he’d done that simply to impress you. But given what I just overheard…” Moira raised her eyebrows, the move communicating a wealth of information, and turned when the bartender came over. She ordered two glasses of the house white.

“Yes, about that,” Felicity finally said. “You probably thought I tricked Oliver into a marriage and that’s what I meant when I said it’s not real, but he knows. It’s, um, it’s…”

“A publicity stunt.” 

“Yes. Precisely. The company needed to believe that Oliver’s partying days were behind, and this struck just the right note. He didn’t want to drag another society miss into a political marriage, so this seemed the best happy medium.” 

“So you’re not in love with my son.”

Felicity bit her lip. “No, ma’am. I like him a lot. He’s my partner—literally now, I guess. But we’re just friends.”

“Friends pretending to be married.”

She thought of their attempts at pet names and really pathetic kiss they’d shared to trick Thea. “Some days we’re better at it than others. But yes, that’s all it is. And if I hadn’t run my mouth without checking the room first, we probably wouldn’t have told you at all. I’m sorry.”

“At least you’re honest about it.” Their wine arrived and Moira gave the bartender a polite nod, dismissing him. “Whose idea was it?”

“Oliver’s,” Felicity said without any hesitation whatsoever. She knew exactly how it would look if she claimed that it had been her idea, as she had the past hour of her life to thank for that.

It was like Moira was reading her thoughts, though, for the woman nodded at the other room. “And you’re prepared to face more displays like the one in there?” 

“I’d hoped so, but I don’t think I am.”

“You’d best learn.” Moira tapped her fingers against the bar-top. “It might not be real, but by marrying my son in any capacity, you’ve entered the major leagues, Miss Smoak. It is still Miss Smoak, correct?”

“Yes, I’m keeping my name. And if you say ‘How modern,’ please know you’re not the first person to say that this week or even today. Why is it so radical that I would keep the name I’ve had since birth?” Felicity took a gulp of wine and decided it was probably a good idea that Sara was driving her back to the office. She really hoped nothing arose for the vigilante that afternoon, as she could feel the alcohol buzz working through her. “Sorry.”

Moira flicked the fingers she’d been tapping. “I see what my son finds appealing about you.”

“Um, we really are just friends.”

Moira gave her a look Felicity couldn’t quite decipher. “Sure,” the Queen matriarch said. “I must say, with no offense to you, that I’m relieved to find out that this marriage is a publicity stunt, as I was a little disgruntled to have missed my only son’s wedding.”

“Yes, ma’am. I understand that.”

Moira folded her hands on the bar and turned to look at Felicity, her gaze frank and assessing. “I’m fine with this publicity stunt—which is to say that I certainly understand your reasons for doing so, but Thea can’t know.”

That was pretty much the last thing Felicity expected to hear. “What?”

Moira picked up her wine. “My daughter has had a very trying year, Miss Smoak.”

“You can, um, you can call me Felicity. Since we’re quasi-related now, and yes, that’s as weird for me to say as it is for you to hear.”

“All right.” Moira inclined her head. “Felicity. Thea has been put through a lot this year. With the Undertaking and the fallout from that—” The fallout, Felicity thought, that Moira had been partially responsible for. “—I’m worried for her. I think if she were to know Oliver’s marriage is a sham, it might succeed in killing whatever shreds of faith in humanity she has left.”

Felicity frowned. Perhaps it was the wine going to her head, but… “You want us to preserve Thea’s faith in humanity by lying to her?”

“You’re already lying to her,” Moira said. 

“Well, yes. I know that. I’m just, I guess I’m just trying to figure out your logic. Because it feels like you’re just delaying her unhappiness if she does fall in love with the idea of Oliver and me being married. We’re going to get divorced after we get the company back.”

Moira raised an eyebrow.

“After Oliver gets the company back,” Felicity said, wincing internally (and externally). “Sorry. I meant after Oliver gets the company back from Isabitch Rochev.”

“But you two have a plans for an amicable divorce, do you not?”

“Well, yes. Mr. Devlin said…never mind. I shouldn’t have mentioned him.”

“I’m not surprised that man is involved. I will publicly give you my blessing—in fact, I already have with that little display we just put on in there in front of half of the board members’ wives—but you must promise me that Thea won’t suspect a thing.”

Felicity took a long swallow of wine. “I promise,” she said, though she had no idea how they were going to keep their word when they were kind of terrible on the PDA front. 

“Thank you, Felicity. You have a driver, yes?”

“Yes, she’s outside.”

“Good, I don’t want you driving in this condition. I’ll see you at the party on Friday.” Moira surprised her by reaching out and squeezing Felicity’s wrist, and it took everything Felicity had not to jump out of her skin. The matriarch rose to her feet and sauntered off with her clutch under her arm. But she paused by the doorway to the bar area. “MIT, you said?”

“Yes, ma’am. I graduated with honors.”

Moira gave her a little half-smile. “It’s nice to know that my grandchildren are going to be geniuses,” she said, and left Felicity sitting at the country club bar, gaping after her in complete shock. 


	7. In Which There Is A Party

“Sounds pretty busy out there,” Felicity said as Diggle slowed the limousine to a stop in the queue of cars. Outside, partygoers lined the block in hopes to get past the velvet ropes, while a crowd of reporters thronged around the doorway. Oliver looked at the crowd and wondered exactly how many people were getting pick-pocketed. If he had to guess, he’d say quite a few. Meanwhile, Felicity continued to lean forward in fascination. “Did she invite _everyone_ in Starling City? She didn’t, right?”

“It’s a happening place,” Diggle said as Oliver ripped out the knot in his tie. He’d tied it three times and it still listed slightly, but he was the Arrow. He could do this.

“I always worry with that many flashbulbs going off that—what if they trigger somebody’s epilepsy, you know? That would be less than cool.” She turned. “Oh, hey, let me get that.”

“I’ve got it.”

She scooted closer on the seat and stared until he sighed and lowered his hands. “Fun story,” she said. “The chess team at my high school had to wear bow-ties. So, really, you’re profiting from the fact that I was a gigantic nerd in high school. Though you’re a little bit bigger than Jimmy Desevito.”

Her knuckles brushed against the side of his neck as she talked. They were as chilly as ever—she was always complaining about cold fingers and how it sucked to type in gloves, even fingerless ones, because there had been a really cute pair on sale down at Gio’s last week, but it was pointless to indulge herself when they’d just end up in a drawer—but he didn’t mind. He kept his chin raised, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. His pulse had sped up a little, but he blamed that on general proximity. He was still wary of being touched.

“You’ve got about two minutes before we get to the front,” Diggle said. Oliver looked up and met his eyes in the rearview mirror. The other man simply raised an eyebrow, and Oliver opted to pretend that he didn’t understand.

“I hope Thea arranged for some good hors d’oeuvres,” Felicity said, apparently not noticing the silent conversation going on over her head. She leaned back. “Is this too tight?” 

“No, it feels good. Look okay?”

She squinted and pursed her lips as she studied him. Her lipstick was a shade darker than usual. “Pretty dapper.”

“ _Very_ dapper,” Diggle said, and Oliver glared at him in a ‘would you kindly shut it?’ way. Diggle only smiled harder.

When the car stopped, he stepped out first, scanning the area. Felicity climbed free after him and gave the crowd a nervous wave. She’d worn a set of towering heels to the event and a white dress with a tight bodice and short skirt, but he wasn’t worried about her balance. He’d seen her sprint in taller heels. She grabbed his hand and held on tight. “Oh, boy.”

Almost right away, questions flew at them from every direction. He put an arm around Felicity to hide his instinctive flinch, and kept the smile on his face, though he suspected it became a grimace before too long.

“Any plans for the big honeymoon? A romantic getaway, perhaps?” 

“Felicity, can you address the rumors that you’re pregnant? Is it twins?”

“Who are you wearing?”

She stood up on her tiptoes and leaned close to his ear, cupping her hand around her mouth. The move seemed to stir the crowd into a miniature frenzy, but she only said, “Twins? Seriously?”

“Just keep smiling.”

“Am I still smiling? I can’t tell. I think I’m blind.”

“Just need to get to the end of the line,” Oliver said through his grimace.

“Hey!” One enterprising reporter jostled to the front of the crowd, nudging against the ropes. “Since we missed the wedding, how about a kiss?”

“Yeah, Mr. Queen, you may now kiss the bride!”

“Kiss, kiss, kiss!”

Only lifelong training in how to keep his composure in public kept the smile on Oliver’s face as he turned to Felicity. “The people want a kiss.”

“Of course they do.” He hoped the panic on her face didn’t show up in any of the pictures. “Um, we should indulge them.”

He really would rather not. Felicity was a friend and a partner, no matter that he’d noticed her lipstick and her shampoo. Every public display of affection was one step further down the rabbit hole and an inch closer to something that could upset their balance, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. But they had a marriage to sell and a company to get back. 

He gritted his teeth. “Trust me?”

“Duh, but what are you going to—whoo, okay, was not expecting—”

With his head ringing with the thousands of reasons this was a bad idea, Oliver dipped her backward in full view of the press. The crowd went wild as he paused to grin at them, so his ears rang with cheers as he lowered his head to kiss Felicity. It wasn’t the quick peck she’d given him to trick Thea. He threw caution to the wind and kissed her the way he’d kissed so many others through the years. He felt her go absolutely tense. Before he could draw back, though, her hand came up, her fingers digging into the side of his collar and holding on. She kissed him back and his brain disregarded the fact that it was all a show for one blissful second.

Their teeth accidentally clicked together, and Oliver remembered exactly where they were.

They pulled back in unison, and Oliver realized he was breathing a little hard. For an instant, the two of them stared at each other. Felicity had her hand bunched in the fabric of his suit jacket. Her pupils were dilated so much that her eyes looked more black than hazel-blue. 

She cleared her throat. “Um, they’re starting to stare in a not-good way.”

“Right.” He pulled her back to her feet and turned to give the crowd a wave. Felicity’s ears were fascinatingly pink as she grabbed his hand and towed him along the rest of the red carpet to where a publicist held the door for them. Oliver decided to ignore the leer the man sent him.

Inside, they were instructed to wait in a little lobby until the DJ could be alerted. The minute they were alone, Felicity let go of his hand and fanned her face. “Wow,” she said. “ _Wow._ ”

“Yeah,” Oliver said. “Look, sorry about the—”

“Holy crap, you are _good_ at that. Like, A-plus good. I totally get the number of girlfriends now.” Felicity’s eyes went wide. “Not that I think you’re promiscuous or anything. I mean, you’ve got the whole package working for you—abs, brains, looks, and just now I find out you’re a good kisser, too? Like, I get it.”

Oliver squinted. “Thank you?”

She gave him a tight nod and paced the lobby a couple of times, back and forth, her steps quick. “Wow,” she said again, and he watched her take a deep breath and collect herself. 

For some reason, it made him smile. It was such a _Felicity_ reaction. “Going to be okay?”

“Is the top of my head still in place? I feel like it blew clean off.” She patted her up-do, which he’d watched her carefully layer into place in the Foundry when they’d been getting ready after some vigilante business. “Guess it’s still there. Whew. Okay. Are you ready to do this?”

“Can I get another kiss for luck?” Oliver asked without meaning to.

Her grin popped up, bright and fresh. “I think it’s safer for my head if we don’t.”

“If you insist.” Oliver held out his elbow and she threaded her arm through his. 

They heard the sound of a drum-roll from inside the club—what the hell? Thea had hired a band?—and then the door was pushed open and they stepped out to the announcement of, “Ladies and gentlemen! Appearing publicly together for the first time since they ran and tied the knot, Mr. and _Mrs._ Oliver Queen!”

Across the room, behind the bar, Sara raised a glass of water as Oliver and Felicity waved. The look on her face was sardonic.

* * *

Schmoozing followed, as it inevitably did. He’d gone through the motions so many times he could probably nap through them, were it not for Felicity. At least she had an early warning system for the verbal gaffes. Right before one came tumbling loose, her fingers tightened to a deathgrip around his elbow, occasionally giving him some time to deflect. Luckily, all of the politicians in Starling City and several of his parents’ richer friends seemed to find her absolutely charming, especially after Felicity fixed Councilman Harbaker’s phone.

When his mother descended and frog-marched Felicity away to meet some of her dearest, oldest friends, Oliver abandoned the field like the coward he knew he was and headed to the bar. Diggle was shuffling through index cards, a beer forgotten at his elbow. “Is there a pop quiz I don’t know about coming?” Oliver asked, leaning against the bar-top in relief that he’d finally escaped the three-ring-circus.

Diggle grunted. “Speech.”

“For what?”

“For you.”

The blood drained from Oliver’s face a little. “No.”

“Sorry. Already written. By your sister, if that makes you feel better.” Diggle held up the index cards with an unimpressed look.

“It really doesn’t.”

“What can I get you?” Sara asked, finally freeing herself from a cluster down at the other end of the bar.

It only took Oliver a second to decide. “Whiskey. Double.”

Diggle laughed. “The speech isn’t _that_ bad. I’ll ignore most of it. I’ve got a better idea in mind.”

“That doesn’t exactly reassure me.” Oliver picked up the whiskey that Sara had just poured. “How are you doing?”

“I’ve got a break coming up at some point this hour. Just counting the minutes at this point.” Sara slung a clean rag over her shoulder and glanced around. Oliver wasn’t entirely sure how she put up with this much noise and action every night, as having this many people around put him on edge a little. But she only shrugged, seeming utterly comfortable in her own skin for once. It made him want to frown; as much as he loved the idea that she had finally relaxed around him, it stung his pride that she’d needed to dump him first. “Your sister throws quite the shindig. I caught your little movie star kiss outside.”

Oliver winced. “We had to sell it.”

Again, that half-shrug. “It looked like you two were having fun.”

“Yeah, Felicity says you’re quite skilled in the,” and Diggle held his hands up to imitate quote marks, “‘lip-lock department.’”

For some reason, the fact that she’d discussed the kiss with Diggle bothered Oliver a little more than he found comfortable. He took another sip of whiskey. “Exactly why are you giving a speech, again?”

Diggle moved the lapel of his jacket aside to reveal a garishly bright blue button that read “BEST MAN” in giant letters. “You’ve got an entire wedding party wandering around your…wedding party here.”

“Do I know any of them besides you?” Oliver asked.

“Probably not. No, now that I think about it, Roy’s a groomsman.”

“Oh, perfect.” He’d taken Roy on as a quasi-apprentice after a fight had turned for the worse and his identity had been unmasked, but until his archery improved, Roy was at best a freelancer. He liked the kid, but he wasn’t sure Roy was precisely groomsman material.

Belatedly, he remembered that the wedding had been fake and that none of it mattered.

“As Best Man for this shindig, I think it’s up to me to go save the bride from a particularly handsy city council member that’s about to ask her to dance,” Diggle said, tucking the index cards in his pocket. “If you two will excuse me.”

Sara and Oliver watched him move across the dance floor and swoop in to rescue Felicity before a balding man in his forties could reach her. “Isn’t that your job?” Sara asked laconically.

“According to my mother—” Who had greeted them at the beginning of the party with a kiss on the cheek for him and a hug for Felicity, and that was still very strange for Oliver to process. “—I am not supposed to monopolize Felicity’s time all evening, which is why I’m over here at the bar drinking this well-deserved whiskey.” He toasted her with it.

“Works for me.” She tossed Diggle’s beer and wiped away the condensation left on the bar. “Hey, you doing all right? We haven’t exactly talked since the—”

“Break-up?” Oliver asked.

“—other night,” Sara said. “Felicity mentioned you were in over-work-out mode to get your mind past it.”

The fact that they’d discussed him made Oliver want to fidget. It was always bad when the girlfriend talked to the ex—and Felicity wasn’t actually his girlfriend or even really his wife, so he needed to drop that line of thought. “I needed some time in the hood,” he said. “I’m better.”

“Good. I’m glad. You look a little less like death.”

“Thanks.” Oliver rested an elbow on the. Across the bar, the band started up on a terrible rendition of _The Way You Look Tonight_ —or at least, Oliver assumed it was. Even before the island, his musical tastes hadn’t exactly included the classics. The main singer’s blond afro made him shake his head. “Hey, do you remember Talbot’s?”

Sara looked confused. “From college? What on earth brought that up?” She followed Oliver’s gaze. “Oh. They’re a tiny bit better. Maybe.”

“And they haven’t played _She Hates Me_ fourteen times already.”

“That singer was working through some things.”

“Was the sacrifice of all our ear drums necessary, though?” They shared a grin, more at the memory than anything else—until Sara’s smile abruptly faded. He immediately went on alert. “What is it?”

She pointed. “You should probably deal with that.” 

He looked across the bar just in time to see Thea glaring poisonously at both of them. She held the stare for a long, angry second, promptly turned on her heel, and stomped off back into the office.

Oliver took off across the bar, skirting around a group of overly inebriated dancers, and was halfway up the stairs before it occurred to him that it was possibly a bad idea to draw attention to himself. He could feel a few questioning stares on him, so he straightened up, smoothed the front of his jacket, gave his ‘nothing to see here’ smile, and took the rest of the stairs at a more leisurely pace. Sometimes, he thought, he really wanted the anonymity of wearing the hood all the time.

The office was empty when he poked his head inside, so he sighed and crossed the room, tapping on the door to the storage room. “Thea? You in there?”

“Go away!”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

Oliver ran his hand over his face. Ever since his return from Lian Yu, it was inevitable that he was going to screw things up with Thea, but he generally liked to know exactly how he’d done so. This was, he was aware, not a wish usually granted to him. “Can I at least get a hint?”

“What part of _go away_ is not getting through to the language center of your brain, Ollie?”

Oliver thumped on the door twice. “Are you going to open up or do I need to find another way in?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to open up, so…” 

He was tempted to let her stew the bad mood off, whatever it was, but he heard the way her voice broke on “certainly,” so he sighed. “Thea, please?”

“Guess you’re just going to have to find another way in.”

Oliver scowled. He debated, decided he’d rather not wait until this became an actual problem, and strode to the window. The old code still worked, so in less than twenty seconds, he was outside and shimmying around the side of the building. At least the crowds that had lined up around the block earlier had dispersed so there wasn’t anybody on the sidewalk below. 

The code to unlock the storage room window still worked, too.

He swung inside and cleared his throat, making Thea, who was sitting with her back against the shelves containing the rum stores with her arms crossed over her chest, jolt. “How did you…?”

“Climbed out the window,” Oliver said.

“Seriously?”

“You said I had to find another way in. I did.” He dropped to one knee, crouching in front of her. There were obvious tear tracks. “Okay, Speedy, what’d I do now?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid. Go away.”

“Stupid? I am surprisingly good at stupid.”

Thea sniffled. For a split-second, a smile appeared, but it quickly faltered. “I’m going to ask you something and I want you to be completely honest with me.”

He hoped his face didn’t change. “I can do that.”

“Okay.” She swiped at her nose once, which made her seem impossibly young despite the Alexander McQueen gown and the elegant hairstyle. “Oliver, did you marry Felicity so you could have a respectable wife so you can keep a bunch of mistresses like Sara on the side?”

“What?” He had to honestly blink at that one. “What?”

Thea leveled an annoyed look at him now. “I just _saw_ you out there flirting with Sara and I _know_ you two were together. Does Felicity know?”

“Scoot over.” When she did, reluctantly, Oliver moved out of his crouch and sat next to her, sighing a little as he settled back against the shelf. This was growing to be more and more of a mess with each passing turn. He stared at the wall opposite for a minute and took a deep breath. “Sara isn’t my mistress.”

Thea snorted.

“She’s not. We’ve been over for…” Half a week. “A long time. We’re good friends. That’s all.”

“I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Well, I’m telling the truth. I didn’t—I didn’t marry Felicity as a power play.” He hoped his flinch wasn’t obvious. “It wasn’t to keep a respectable wife so I could just sleep around with whoever I want.”

“Prove it,” Thea said.

Oliver sighed. “When did you get so cynical?”

“When Twitter was the one to tell me my brother got married.”

“Point.” He cast about for an explanation that wouldn’t involve having to lie too badly, but he knew, for all intents and purposes, that his marriage to Felicity was political. And it made him feel far more like a heel to know that, had Sara not broken things off, she would essentially be his mistress, proving Thea right. So he finally settled on something as close to the truth as he could find. “Felicity would be the _last_ person I’d marry if I wanted a respectable wife who was willing to look the other way on extramarital affairs.”

“What? Why?”

“Because she knows all of my account numbers and pin numbers, for one thing.” It was her favorite idle threat to make whenever he mildly annoyed her.

“Are you telling me you’re afraid of your wife?” Thea gave him an unimpressed eye-roll.

“No.” But he chuckled anyway. “That was a joke. Felicity is…Felicity makes me want to be better. I didn’t marry her to make me look good while I sleep around. Okay?”

“No.” Thea curled inward, hugging her arms tighter across her chest. 

“What’s wrong, then?” 

“I don’t know anything about the woman _you just married_ , Ollie,” she said. “Everything’s changing so fast, and maybe you’re…”

It took him a second, but insight finally struck. “Speedy,” he said slowly. “I’m not Dad. I’m not anything like him.”

“But…”

“Tell you what,” Oliver said before she could bring up any of the thousands of legitimate doubts. “Instead of worrying about this, why don’t you get to know her? You should…go out to lunch or something.”

“Seriously?” Thea asked.

Oliver shrugged. “Worked for Mom.”

“Mom had lunch with Felicity.” Thea paused. “And Felicity survived?”

Survived was probably the best way to put it. She’d come back from that lunch with a thousand-yard stare that would rival most battlefield survivors, and it had taken him nearly an hour and fixing two cups of tea for her before she’d returned to herself at all. 

“Yeah,” he said. “She survived, which makes me think Mom likes her. You might, too, if you give her a chance. Outside of this giant party you’re throwing for the both of us, that is.” 

She dropped her arms to her sides and her shoulders went back, the old spitfire attitude rising back to the surface. It made him want to smile, especially when she tilted her head. “You don’t like it? I got the band to play Fall Out Boy.”

“You’re a brat,” Oliver said. He elbowed her, smiling when she elbowed him back. But before it could turn into a slap-fight, he took a chance and draped an arm over her shoulders. “Maybe give it some time? I know things happened really fast with this.”

“Time.” Thea chewed on her bottom lip and then rested her head against Oliver’s shoulder for a few seconds. He felt her sigh. “I can do that. Though don’t expect me to like this woman just because you married her. Your taste usually sucks.”

“Name one time I haven’t had good taste.”

“Fall Out Boy!”

“Okay, fair. But we should probably get back to the party. You’re the hostess and I’m the groom.”

“And it’s a fact that a party’s more fun when I’m around,” Thea said.

Oliver stood and pulled his sister to her feet. “You sounded like Felicity just now.”

“I hope you realize how weird that is.”

“Just pointing it out. C’mon.” He shut the window before he followed Thea. In their absence, the party had seemed to intensify. Oliver only needed a quick glance to locate Felicity talking to Diggle near the bar. “Think about what I said?” he asked Thea.

His sister gave him a jerky nod. “But that still doesn’t let you off the hook for getting married without letting me be a bridesmaid.”

“Let me know when I’m off the hook for that. I’m going to go, um, find my bride.”

“Speeches and toasts in fifteen minutes, don’t you dare sneak out before then.”

“Sold.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and made his escape—he felt no shame calling it that, as he counted any interaction with Thea that didn’t end with her shouting at him as a win—and worked his way through the crowd. He had to swerve to avoid one ex-girlfriend from his college days (thanks, Thea) and there were two political conversations he had to duck, and by the time he reached his partners, he really wanted a drink. 

The sentiment must have shown on his face, for Felicity’s eyebrows went high. “You look like you did after that time you went a few rounds with HR about the annual picnic,” she said.

“Worse. Thea.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“You mean, throwing this dog and pony show wasn’t enough?” Diggle gave him a mock-surprised look. “Please tell me somebody is going to jump out of a cake.”

Oliver glared at him. “Somebody’s aiming to get thrown _into_ a cake.”

“Oh, look, there’s Lyla.” Diggle gave him a final smart-ass grin and made himself scarce.

Left alone with Felicity, Oliver wanted to shift his feet again. She gave him an open smile. “Aw, yay! She was able to make it. I wasn’t sure. I’ll have to go say hi later and—why do you look like that?”

“Thea.” Oliver took a deep breath. “I may have volunteered for you two to have lunch.”

Felicity tilted her head. “I must have misheard you just now. You did what?”

Oliver leaned over to snatch two flutes of champagne from a passing tray. “I’m sorry?” 

Felicity bit her lip, closing her eyes briefly, and exhaled for a long moment. She downed half of the glass Oliver handed her. “Okay,” she said. “It’s only fair, given that I blabbed about seventy percent of our big secret to your mom.”

“It’s not revenge. Thea, she said…” Oliver had to swallow hard. “She thought I married you so I’d have somebody reputable to cheat on.”

“But you wouldn’t do that.”

“Our father did. So I get where she’s coming from.” It was Oliver’s turn to swallow most of the champagne. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think I’ll be having any extramarital affairs.”

“Oh. Oh, boy. Are you okay with that?”

“I guess I’ll have to be.”

“Okay, good because,” and Felicity bit her lip again, “I think we’ve got a bigger problem to worry about right now.”

“What do you mean?”

Felicity pointed.


	8. In Which There Is a Guest, a Gift, a Toast, a Dance, and a Proposal

Nyssa al Ghul cut through the crowd like she’d been born to crash parties in the questionable part of Starling City. Oliver tensed, though she’d dressed in a dark mini-dress rather than her armor. He knew better than to suspect she’d come unarmed, even though the dress certainly didn’t seem like it could be hiding anything.

“What is she doing here?” He took a step forward.

Felicity tugged at his elbow. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“You’re acting like the Arrow right now. We’re at our wedding party and you should be happy, fun Oliver. Or as close to that as you can get.”

Oliver took a deep breath and relaxed his stance. She had a point, no matter that every single sense was screaming danger at him. The last thing he wanted at his sister’s party was League trouble. Nyssa breached the last gap in the crowd, moving with purpose but not as though she were about to leap at him and Felicity. Nobody appeared to be paying special attention to them, though a couple dancers tossed appreciative looks Nyssa’s way.

“Mr. and Mrs. Queen,” she said, sketching them a little bow.

“Miss al Ghul,” Oliver said through a fake smile. When Felicity didn’t say anything, he nudged her; she’d started to stare. He felt her jolt. “And I think Felicity’s keeping her name.”

Nyssa inclined her head once. “Forgive me. I am Nyssa al Ghul, Heir to the Demon.”

“Felicity Smoak,” Felicity said. “This one’s better half, if we’re absolutely committed to titles here.”

Oliver coughed to cover his laugh.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Nyssa said. She reached into a small purse at her side and removed something wrapped in silk, which she presented with a little flourish to Oliver. “For you.”

He had to pass his champagne to Felicity to take it, but the minute his fingers wrapped around it, a foreboding feeling settled in behind his sternum. He managed a nod.

“This is from my father, Ra’s al Ghul, the Head of the Demon, to the protector of Starling City, on the occasion of him taking a suitable mate. It was thrust into the heart of my father’s greatest enemy after a fight lasting three days and three nights. He sends it with his regards and well wishes on your marriage,” Nyssa said.

Indeed, the gift was a dagger, sheathed in black metal with a filigreed hilt and bearing ornate decoration. It was just as bloodstained as promised, and Felicity looked appropriately horrified. Oliver just said, “Thank you. Please pass on my regards to your father as well.”

“Is that blood?” Felicity asked under her breath, her eyes wide.

He bit down on his back molars to keep the friendly smile in place. “We don’t win do ourselves any favors by pissing off Ra’s al Ghul,” he said, leaning close so Nyssa wouldn’t overhear.

“But that can’t be _sanitary_!”

“Smile for the nice assassin, Felicity.”

Nyssa’s smirk told him their conversation hadn’t been as private as he hoped. “I will pass along your message to my father. I know you are uneasy when League business takes place on Starling City soil, and as someone who has bested me in battle, I will honor your concerns. I am only here to pass on my father’s blessing. And perhaps something of a more personal nature.”

“We’re happy to have you here,” Felicity said. Why she nudged Oliver, he didn’t know. He hadn’t even been close to pointing out that the last time she’d come to Starling City on personal business, Nyssa had committed a string of crimes that had wound up with his ex-girlfriend trying to commit suicide.

But he sure thinking it.

Nyssa shot him one last look before she inclined her head at Felicity. “That is a lie, I think,” she said to Felicity. “But I thank you for your courtesy. If you should ever have reason to call upon the League, I believe you already know how to reach me.”

Oliver wrapped the knife back up in the silk as Nyssa sauntered off, mentally cataloguing its heft and the weighted balance to it. He carried very few weapons as Oliver Queen—he’d been arrested far too many times and it was difficult to explain illegal knives when he was supposed to be a playboy—so actually carrying the dagger, as macabre as it might be, felt a bit like a security blanket.

“What did she mean by that?” he asked Felicity. “You know how to get in touch with the League?”

Felicity winced. “Um, one of my projects. I wasn’t aware she knew about it, though.” When he gave her a narrow-eyed look, she sighed. “I’ve been tracking her. Just keeping an eye out, you know? She knows personal things about this team and it seemed prudent.”

“You can do that?” he asked before he thought about it. Then he shook his head. “Right, of course you can.”

“Thank you. Should I find Sara and warn her?”

Oliver turned slightly so he could keep Nyssa in his peripheral vision without being too obvious about watching her. Across the room, Diggle’s stance told Oliver that he was doing exactly the same thing. “She wouldn’t intentionally hurt Sara, I think,” he said as Nyssa took up one of the stools at the bar.

“No, no, it’s girl code.” Felicity patted at her hair. “You warn your friends if their exes show up so they don’t make idiots of themselves. Obviously.”

“Girl code” only made Oliver think of Thea, and her bruised feelings over his sudden marriage, which made him run a hand over his face. “I think she’s on break. Great, one more thing to add to this three-ring circus. First Thea, now the League of Assassins.”

“Of all the exes that could have showed,” she said, “that one’s almost comforting.”

“Don’t remind me,” Oliver said.

“After all, Helena’s a wanted criminal and Laurel’s…well, she’s Laurel, so she’s perfect and her hair is always on point, but god, I am not looking forward to that meeting—”

“I don’t want to talk about Laurel,” Oliver said. 

“Right, of course.” Felicity’s head bobbed as she nodded too quickly. 

Laurel was hiding in Central City, Sara had told him bluntly the day before. She’d stressed that time away was good for Laurel—it gave her time to reconnect with their mother, she’d started making new friends, she’d found a great support group—but it had still sat like a lump in Oliver’s chest. He hadn’t meant to hurt people. And with this false marriage growing out of control, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“Sorry,” Felicity said, drawing his attention back. She seemed to be putting up a bright smile for him. “I’m going to go find Sara. Chin up, though. But with the exception of the terrifying assassin that unexpectedly brought us a super unsanitary-knife, and Thea’s meltdown, the party seems to be going well, though? Right? That’s a good thing.”

On cue, they both heard the squeal of microphone feedback, and the music began to fade. Turning, Oliver saw that Thea had made her way onto the stage with the band, holding a microphone and looking entirely too pleased with herself. “You were saying?” he said to Felicity.

“Yes.” She looked pained. “That one is on me, I admit it.”

“Sorry to interrupt the festivities, everybody,” Thea said, waving at the crowd, who’d turned to the stage with various levels of indignation that the music had been cut. “Speeches weren’t supposed to happen for another fifteen minutes or so, but I’m worried my big bro’s gonna skip out on this party—”

She was cut off by the crowd booing.

“I know, right?” Thea said, like she’d been completely vindicated. “But with a wife as hot as his, can you blame him?”

Oliver braced an arm around Felicity’s shoulders and pulled her close before she could run. He’d moved maybe a little too quickly as when he caught her off-balance, he had to support her before she could fall over. She pressed into his side, hand pressed against his chest, and he tried not to think about how nice that felt. 

“I’m going to throw up,” Felicity said behind her smile as several dozen people turned to look at them. “Right now. In front of all of these people.”

“Body fluids tend to kill the fairytale vibe,” he said. 

She gave him a sour look.

“So I thought,” Thea went on after the crowd had settled, “let’s get the speeches out of the way, right? First up, we have our maid of honor!”

She passed the microphone off to a woman that Oliver didn’t recognize. “Who’s that?” he asked under his breath.

“At this point, your guess is as good as mine.”

“So, like, I met Felicity, like, three years ago,” the woman said, twirling the microphone cord around her finger, “when we were both working at Mr. Queen’s company, fixing computers and stuff.”

Felicity’s maid of honor sent a very obvious wink Oliver’s way when she said his name, and he felt Felicity bristle. “I know we’re not really married,” Felicity said, “but it’s terrible form to flirt with the groom at his wedding.”

“And they could have at least picked somebody who actually knew you,” said a voice at Felicity’s elbow, and they both turned to see Sara looking infinitely amused. She pretended to wipe off a table so she could stay close to the happy couple.

Oliver instinctively glanced at the bar, which appeared to be empty of Nyssa. Maybe she’d left.

“I know, right?” Felicity said. “I’m not sure if I’m more offended by that or the fact that she’s hitting on my fake husband right in front of the entire room.”

“That’s right, you be territorial.” Sara patted her arm. “Anything happen while I was on break?”

Oliver and Felicity shared an uneasy glance. “Actually,” Oliver said. He pulled out the silk-wrapped dagger and handed it over.

Instantly, their casual friend vanished and the Canary stood next to them, keeping her back to the main crowd and the dagger hidden. Only those who knew her closely would have picked up the difference, Oliver thought, which was probably why she was one of the best assassins in the world. Except right now, the terrifying competence she displayed as the Canary was softened somewhat. She traced a wondering finger over a groove in the sheath. “She’s here,” she said.

“She wanted to deliver a gift from Ra’s al Ghul on the occasion of me marrying a suitable mate,” Oliver said dryly. “Apparently an appropriate present is an already-used knife.”

“To be fair, we didn’t exactly register at Bed Bath & Beyond,” Felicity said. “And it came from the big guy himself, right? That’s something?”

Sara snorted. “That’s a load of crap. This is one of hers. She stuck it in somebody to have an excuse to be here.”

“Guess I’ll be checking the incident reports tonight,” Felicity said, shaking her head.

“She probably picked a murderer or a rapist, if it makes you feel better.”

Because the crowd laughed at something Felicity’s nameless maid of honor had just said, Oliver and Felicity faked a laugh, as well. He could see Thea on stage, avoiding his gaze, which told him she’d picked this terrible person as a prank that was now backfiring spectacularly on her. “Why don’t you keep it?” Oliver asked, looking at the dagger.

The dagger disappeared into Sara’s bar apron. “She’ll be glad to have it back. It’s her favorite.”

“You must mean a lot to her,” Felicity said, looking thoughtful.

Sara was quiet for a minute. “Smile, the speech is almost over,” she said, and slipped away while everybody in the crowd clapped and raised their glasses to Oliver and Felicity.

Felicity downed more than half of her glass. “I have never set eyes on that woman in my life. You’d think a real maid of honor would at least tell _flattering_ stories. Who’d they get for you? Some guy that wants to punch you in the face?”

“Only sometimes,” Oliver said, nodding his head as Diggle headed up the stairs to the stage. “And I’m sure at least some of the time I deserve it.”

“Oh, this should be good.” Felicity leaned forward next to him.

Diggle took a deep breath. “Unfortunately I don’t have any funny stories of Oliver Queen’s computer heroics,” he said, and half of the audience tittered. “And really, I shouldn’t be the one up here giving this speech, which all of us know.”

“What is he talking about?” Felicity asked.

“But I think the man who should be giving the best man speech for Oliver Queen—well, I’d like to think I’d have his blessing, if he were able to give it right now.” Diggle paused, and Oliver felt his stomach sink. It was amazing just how much Tommy’s death could hurt out of nowhere. It was like a right-cross that came out of nowhere. He tugged at his tie a little bit, hoping to get a little more oxygen. Why it suddenly felt hard to breathe, he didn’t want to contemplate. Diggle, on stage, dug into his jacket. “In fact, if Tommy were here...well, I made a list of the things he might say.”

He pulled out an index card and looked up, and for a second, it was like Tommy was standing right behind him, giving Oliver that cheesy, roguish grin of his.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t do an actual impression,” Diggle said, and began to read off the list. “First up—Oliver, what are you doing, man? Getting married? No offense, Felicity, you’re a sweet girl and all, but Oliver, c’mon, have you _seen_ the singles scene out there? It is siiiii-iiiiick and—sorry, man, I can’t do this anymore. I am just not that white.” Diggle looked up to the ceiling, as though addressing heaven, and shook his head in mock disgust as the audience laughed with varying degrees of discomfort. He tucked the index cards back into his jacket.

“I don’t think Tommy would mind if I spoke from the heart,” Diggle said. “So I’ll keep it brief. I’ve known Oliver a couple years ago now—been in some real tense situations with him as his bodyguard, and that tends to give you the measure of a man. Oliver Queen is one of the finest men I know, and I’m honored to call him my friend. And Felicity Smoak...well, there has never been a time where I’ve talked to Felicity without her making me smile. I mean it when I say that there have never been two souls on earth more well-matched than these two, and as a friend to both of you, I wish you nothing but the deepest happiness.”

He raised his glass. “Here’s to you both. Cheers.”

Oliver heard the toast murmured through the room and belatedly remembered to take a sip. When Felicity nudged at his elbow, he looked down to see her covertly holding up a tissue. It was only then that he realized his eyes weren’t quite dry.

He wiped them hastily with his cuff. “I’m good,” he said, waving her off. “Just—little dusty in here.”

“Uh-huh,” Felicity said, but she smiled as she put the kleenex away, as if to say _your secret is safe with me_. Which, he figured, was applicable to many aspects of their lives.

On the stage, Diggle had handed the microphone back to Thea and was making his way back into the crowd. “So!” Thea said brightly. “Let’s hear it for the Best Man, John Diggle! Now, to keep my brother from bailing on his own party, I think it’s time for a first dance, don’t you?”

Felicity grimaced and finished her champagne. “Of course,” she said in an undertone. “I hate dancing, just so you know. Well, no, that’s not true, but I do hate dancing for an audience. If I liked that, I’d have been a stripper and my student loans would be paid off by now. Legally, anyway. I mean, I’m flexible enough and—oh, my god, forget I said that.”

Oliver coughed into his hand, blinking away the mental images that arose. “I promise not to step on your toes, if that helps,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Deal,” she said, and threaded her fingers through his. She poked him as they stepped onto the dance floor. “You’re not going to cry again, are you?” she asked, looking intensely fascinated.

He had no idea if she was teasing or not, but he laughed. “Oh, shut up,” he said, his smile breaking through.

“No, I don’t blame you if you do. I almost teared up a couple of times myself. Um.” She was very carefully not looking at the crowd around them, but Oliver knew she had to be feeling the pressure of every eyeball on them as they stood in the middle of the cleared-out dance floor, waiting for the music to begin. “There’s not a chance you had fancy lessons as a kid, is there? I’m told that’s a thing with you not-so-idle rich.”

“I did, though I hated them,” Oliver said. He remembered enough from the class about where he should put his hands, though he hesitated a little. Sensing that, Felicity stepped a little closer to him and gave him a look, one that reminded him that everybody thought they were married and probably wouldn’t hesitate over things like that. Her heels put her forehead level with his nose, and made her the perfect height for him.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had that thought. He pushed it from his mind as the first notes started—to a song he didn’t recognize. Felicity did, though, for she groaned.

“What is it?”

“Taylor Swift,” Felicity said. “Your sister picked _Love Story_ because our fake marriage isn’t cliché enough.”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said, stepping off and holding Felicity up when she would have stumbled. “I like it. It’s catchy.”

Felicity raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’m not the one who recognized it before she even started singing,” Oliver said, and Felicity’s eyes narrowed at him. “Could it be we have a secret fan here?”

Felicity grumbled under her breath, which made him smile. “It’s not as if this didn’t play on the radio every ten minutes when it came out,” she said. “You couldn’t exactly avoid it unless you were stranded on an island somewhere or—oh my god, I am so, so sorry, I didn’t mean it like—”

But Oliver threw his head back and laughed, so hard that it nearly threw them off-beat. A camera flashed in the corner of his vision, but he ignored it. By the time he stopped laughing, Felicity had even begun to smile, shaking her head at him ruefully, and they danced on in front of hundreds of strangers and the few people they knew in Starling City.

Onstage, Thea carefully avoided meeting both of their eyes over her choice of song, and fled shortly thereafter.

* * *

It took her nearly an hour to break free after her dance with Oliver, but even then, Felicity’s pulse was still pounding. What a _stupid_ thing to say. She’d blundered into some real verbal gaffes in her time so that one didn’t take the cake or anything, but it was probably going to feature on her pre-sleep greatest hits playlist for a few nights running. Stranded on a desert island or something. Good one, Felicity. Way to go.

At least dancing had been fun. Roy had cut in after their first dance and they’d had a good time twirling each other around and laughing. She’d danced with Diggle, with a couple of her coworkers down in the Applied Sciences division, and then Oliver again. To keep up appearances, he’d said. She would have danced with him without the need for that. They were friends, after all.

Friends with insane chemistry.

She shook her head to clear it as she finally made her escape from Verdant’s overly loud main room, heading for the hallway she knew only the staff used. All night, her balance had been off thanks to that whopper of a kiss Oliver had laid on her outside on the red carpet. Luckily, she’d been able to play it off as nerves over the party—with everybody but Moira, who’d shot her a knowing look when they had come inside. She wasn’t actually Felicity’s mother-in-law, but it definitely _felt_ like she was, the way she’d smirked. That was just great, that was.

So yes, she was rattled, and yes, it was understandable. Who could blame her? You were supposed to go to the movies and hang out with friends, not make out with them in front of dozens of flashing cameras and screaming fans. And you weren’t supposed to wish those makeouts had lasted longer, or were just a little more private, or…

Felicity took a deep breath and stepped back into a little alcove in the hallway, sliding down the wall until she was resting on her haunches. The champagne she’d chugged was making her system feel rather cozy at the moment, with a nice, floaty buzz to it. So she had that, and this stolen moment of peace away from the madness Thea had inflicted upon them in her desire for revenge against her brother.

The Queens were going to be the death of her.

When she heard footsteps approaching down the hall, she wanted to groan yet again. Couldn’t she even get one moment of peace? She debated the merits of staying where she was and handling whatever came her way, but ultimately, she didn’t really want to deal with another human for at least five more minutes. So she slipped into the storage room, leaned back against the door, and closed her eyes, blowing out a long breath.

Until she heard, “Uh, Felicity?”

She jolted. And when she opened her eyes, she shrieked.

Sara and Nyssa each raised an eyebrow at her in sync. The move was almost eerie enough to distract her away from the fact that Nyssa had Sara backed up against one of the shelves, and clothing had definitely, definitely come off. 

“Oh my god, I am so sorry, I didn’t know this was, um, occupied—there wasn’t, there wasn’t a scrunchie on the door or—wow, I’m sorry. I’ll just go, I totally didn’t mean to, um, or anything…”

“There is somebody outside,” Nyssa said, calmly stepping away from Sara and scooping up her dress to pull back on. Apparently League of Assassins members believed in sports bras, though Felicity would never have guessed that. It seemed so pedestrian. “So unless you also wish to invite them in, the best course would be to remain where you are.”

Sara re-did up her bra clasp easily. “Oh, you’re inviting Felicity into this little circle?” she asked, grinning, like Felicity wasn’t already trying to melt through the floor in complete humiliation.

“Whoa, no, I am really okay over here and I’m sorry that I, uh, interrupted in the first place. I mean, you’re both great and all, but I find you individually terrifying and together…” Felicity, on the verge of a very serious babble-attack, put both hands up. Sara, the little shit, was already starting to grin. Neither of them were at all embarrassed about the states of dishabille they’d been discovered in. What was it _like_ to have that kind of confidence? She swallowed hard. “I mean to say, I’m good. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“She is also married,” Nyssa said, shooting Sara a peevish look.

“Right, and that,” Felicity said. “Can’t...forget that.”

“I’m just teasing.” Sara tugged her shirt on and finger-combed her hair back into a messy bun. She seemed lighter than she’d been in months, Felicity realized. Certainly, Sara hadn’t smiled like that in a long time. “Though if you’ve got your own appointment to keep in here, we can get out of your way, too.”

“I really just wanted to be alone,” Felicity said, wrinkling her nose. “Just for a minute. Instead I appear to have cockblocked you both. Not that, uh, there’s a lot of _cock_ involved or—I’ll stop talking. I think that would be for the best.” She ran both hands over her face.

She heard a quiet chuckle and cautiously opened her eyes. The Heir to the Demon had stepped back into her dress (which Sara was zipping up) and was actually smiling at her. “I see why you like her,” Nyssa said to Sara. She said something in Arabic that made Sara shake her head, but after a rapid fire exchange turned back to Felicity. “The hallway is empty now, so I must take my leave. Thank you for your hospitality. The party was…” She paused, her eyes lingering on Sara. “Most excellent.”

“We really provide the full service here in Starling City,” Felicity said, wanting to put her head in her hands and just disappear. “Even your hotel will have that mint on the pillow that we all adore.”

“Hotel.” Nyssa actually snorted derisively. 

Apparently, the League of Assassins did _not_ believe in five-star accommodations, which made a certain bit of sense, Felicity guessed. After all, Sara had camped out in a clock tower for months. Felicity had always assumed that that was because she on the run from everybody she knew, though. Maybe not. From the way, Sara’s look turned annoyed and she said something in Arabic, and the way Nyssa suddenly turned shifty, Felicity figured she’d accidentally stumbled into something.

“You’re not staying in a hotel? Or a safe house? Or...something? You can’t be staying with Sara because she’s still staying with her dad and no offense, I went over there to deliver some news about the Arrow once, and that place is seriously _tiny_.”

“I will find somewhere to sleep.”

She didn’t know why she did it. She had no idea at all, actually. It was as though something else took over her mouth and brain, but words came tumbling out. “You could stay at my place,” Felicity said to the scion of the most dangerous group of trained killers on the planet.

Both Sara and Nyssa stared at that one.

“Not—not with me and Oliver, because frankly, I think I’d be the only one alive come morning,” Felicity went on. She heard herself, she clearly did, but the words kept coming. “But my townhouse, it’s empty right now, and—look, I worry you’re going to sleep in an alley or something and you are way too terrifying to look like a part of Starling City’s homeless population. The house is there. If you want it. Whatever.”

Nyssa’s mouth had dropped open partially—Felicity had that effect—but she closed it and studied Felicity. “You would offer me hospitality after everything I have done to your team.”

“We’re not friends or anything, but Sara’s my friend and I trust her judgment. After all, I kind of fa—I kind of married her ex-boyfriend. So basically I need to get back into her good graces, and this seems like it might work.” Felicity pushed her shoulders back and, before she could change her mind, fished around in her clutch for her keys. She stuck her fingernail into the O-ring to pry it apart and remove her house-key, holding that out to the assassin. “Just avoid my neighbor. He thinks I have a cat and that it keeps getting loose and eating his azaleas, which is clearly a lie because I _don’t_ have a cat and—yeah, here, just take it.”

Sara leaned back on her hands against the wall and snickered. “This is where you say thank you,” she told Nyssa, who was still standing there frowning at Felicity, clearly perplexed. “Thank you, Felicity.”

“Ah...yes, thank you.” Nyssa finally took the key.

“Well, uh.” Felicity gave them both a bright smile, realized that the only way out of the awkwardness was to run, and said, “Okay, have fun, make sure you water the herbs on the window sill—if they’re not already dead yet, they probably are—and, yeah, I’m just gonna go. Have fun, girls.”

And cringing at how ‘camp counselor’ that sounded, she made her escape.

Five minutes later, what she’d done was finally starting to set in. Felicity dealt with it by ordering bourbon and staring into the glass at the bar, which was mercifully not being manned by Sara at that point. She was still there when Oliver found her.

He simply tilted his head at her in question.

“So far,” she said, taking a sip and wrinkling her nose at the taste, “this marriage thing is going great. We’ve upset your sister, your mom thinks I’m actually going to have your babies at some point, your business rival has hired private investigators to follow us, and uh, I also invited your ex-girlfriend’s quasi-girlfriend to stay at my place since I’m not using it.” She blew out a breath. “You know, the daughter of the head of the League of Assassins is just gonna crash at my pad. No big.”

Oliver had picked up her bourbon, but now he froze with it halfway to his mouth. “What was that?”

“Nyssa al Ghul is going to stay at my place and water my plants for me.”

Oliver just stared.

“I know! I panicked. I walked in on them, ah, _in flagrante delicto_ or almost, and there went my mouth. Though you have to admit, if I’d done it on purpose, it’d be kind of brilliant. Look at it. It’d be like me buying off your sort-of girlfriend by letting her incredibly terrifying sometimes-lover to stay at my house rent-free. Eliminating the ‘competition,’ as it were.”

Oliver finished her bourbon. “If this marriage were real,” he said in a low voice, “I’d be kind of impressed with that level of chess mastery.”

Felicity had to laugh. That was the only thing she could do. “I know. It’s kind of some _Game of Thrones_ level subterfuge, right?”

Oliver squeezed her shoulder; either he was in a good mood, or he was just as wrung out by the wedding party as she was and too tired to deal with any of the other crazy curveballs it had thrown at them. His smile was the fond one she liked best. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Probably for the best,” she said, as he really wasn’t in a hurry to catch up on pop culture. “I mean, if this were _Game of Thrones_ , the only reason we both survived our wedding would be that we didn’t have one.”

This time it was Oliver’s turn to laugh. “Another drink?”

“Please.”


	9. In Which There are Company Politics and Questionable Artwork

She might have an assassin residing at her beloved townhouse and private investigators following her every move, ensuring that wherever she went, she had a “bodyguard,” and she might be staying with her boss/partner/friend, but overall, Felicity’s life didn’t change that much until the Monday three weeks after her fake marriage to Oliver was “consummated” thanks to a tip sent to TMZ.

And the change came in a big way: she walked into her office at Queen Consolidated to find everything on her desk neatly packed into a copier paper box. She blinked several times, coffee still in hand, and then swiveled on her heel to face Oliver, who’d risen from his desk. “Excuse me?”

“Felicity, I can explain—”

“Am I being _fired_?” 

Sure, she hadn’t exactly liked being an executive assistant—she was good at it because frankly, it just didn’t take that much of her considerable brain power—but the insult against her professionalism rankled. And it cut far deeper than she expected it to.

“No,” Oliver said, holding his hands up.

“Then why is all of my stuff packed up like security’s going to show up and escort me out of the building at any second? I notice all of your things are right there where they belong on your desk.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said. He grimaced now, like she was causing him actual pain. “This wasn’t my call. Just hear me out—”

“So you _are_ firing me!”

“No, you’re not being fired—”

“Good because I have been a good assistant, and you know that. I have covered for you so many times, and I reworked your entire system, and I even got you coffee on more than one occasion, so I don’t see why my stuff would possibly be here in a box like this.”

“You’re getting promoted.” Oliver grabbed her gently just above the elbows. “Felicity, this isn’t you getting fired, we’re promoting you, and if you would stop talking for just a second, I’d be able to explain that.”

Felicity’s mouth snapped shut. “Promoted how? Because if you really look at it, a lot of EAs would look at this as pretty big promotion.” She held up her left hand and pointed to her ring finger. “I mean, if it were real and all. Which it’s not, and that is so incredibly beside the point that—did you say _promoted_? Why? What?”

“Because your marriage is boring,” said a voice behind her, and Felicity figured out why Oliver had looked pained.

She bit her bottom lip and breathed deeply through her nose, just once. When she turned, Oliver kept his grip on her arms. “Mr. Devlin,” she said in a measured voice.

Queen Consolidated’s head of publicity—and half the reason they were in their current predicament—stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. Felicity hadn’t seen him since that morning at the lawyers’ office. “Miss Smoak.”

“What do you mean our marriage is boring?” Felicity said. “We had that whole big party that Oliver’s sister threw, with plenty of fireworks—only some of them literal. And Isabel has plenty of pictures of us leaving his apartment together.” They’d made sure of that. If she was going to keep inconveniencing them with a new slew of private investigators, they were going to return the favor. She’d never had to act so goofily in love over somebody bringing her coffee from Starbucks before, but it was worth it to imagine Isabel up in her penthouse apartment, slamming her fist angrily down like a villain over the fact that Oliver and Felicity hadn’t slipped up.

“Your story was sold as a Cinderella story.” Mr. Devlin admired his own fingernails and buffed them against his suit jacket once. “And now you’ve become an old married couple in less than a month. It’s dull. People don’t want dull. In your case, they want adorable celebrities doing adorable things together, not Harry and Sally Homemaker going to bed early every night.”

It took everything Felicity had not to look at Oliver and raise her eyebrows. They hadn’t made it to bed before 3 a.m. in over a week. Of course, none of that had exactly involved sexytimes. But still.

“So what are you suggesting, Mr. Devlin?” Oliver’s voice was measured in a way he rarely used outside of the Arrow. “That I send Felicity to work in a carriage made out of a pumpkin every day?”

“Of course not. But neither would it kill anybody to fake some romance. So.” Devlin finally stepped into the office and crossed his arms over his chest. “Time to get rid of that troubling ‘she’s your personal assistant’ aspect. Effective immediately, Miss Smoak is the head of the Applied Sciences division. We’ll be putting out a company-wide memo first, and I’ve scheduled an appointment with a tech magazine to come do a profile on Miss Smoak.”

“I beg your pardon?” Felicity asked.

“You have a masters from MIT with what they tell me is quite an exceptional thesis,” was all Devlin said. “We had you working in the IT department. I’d say it’s for the good of the company if we correct that oversight.”

“But a _magazine_ —”

“We’ve suggested they add something about your whirlwind romance. Having it all, as they say. And you’ll be interviewed as well, Oliver.” Devlin stepped over and programmed a cup of coffee for himself. Over the whir of the machine, he said, “Be sure to gush appropriately over your wife’s intelligence, of course.”

“I’m not his wife,” Felicity said automatically.

“Aren’t you?” Devlin turned.

“Wouldn’t it be prudent to clear some of this with _us_ first?” Oliver asked, his voice still measured.

Devlin picked up his coffee. “Are you saying you don’t want the promotion, Felicity?”

Felicity hesitated.

Devlin smiled. “Thought so.”

“Even so, Oliver has a point. You kind of sprang this on us without any warning. I don’t even know how to run a department. I mean, I was the low man on the totem pole for IT—not that that saying makes any sense, actually, because they proved it was actually the ones on the top that were technically the low—you know what, that’s not important right now.”

“Felicity, you don’t have to take the promotion,” Oliver said, and Felicity realized abruptly that he was still standing behind her with his hands gripping her upper arms. She had all but backed right into him. “If you think it’s too much—”

“Excuse me?” Felicity asked, turning on him.

Devlin chuckled. “Trouble in paradise already. But no, it’s in the company’s best interests to move Miss Smoak to a more prominent position. Not just for the sake of publicity, but...well, have you seen her work? We had a genius under our nose the entire time.”

“I’m aware,” Oliver said before Felicity could stop him, and Devlin raised his eyebrows. “I mean...of course she’s brilliant. That goes without saying. But I don’t appreciate my hiring and management decisions being hijacked like this.”

“Don’t forget your marital decisions, too.” Devlin set the coffee down to reach into his suit jacket. He pulled out an envelope and set it on Felicity’s old desk.

“What is this?” Felicity stepped away from Oliver and picked up the envelope, frowning when she rifled through the contents. “Hockey tickets?”

“An itinerary. I’ve had my assistant set one up that’s designed to keep you in the spotlight at all times. Just remember to be as adorable as promised from that red carpet stunt at your wedding party, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Devlin toasted them with his coffee on the way out the door. “Cheers.”

“Uh, bye, I guess,” Felicity said. Since she was still trying to mentally digest the idea that she had been handed the Applied Science department, she chose to focus on the documents in hand. There were tickets to pretty much to every sport currently in season, as well as opera tickets and a couple of printed invitations to functions and fundraisers. Some of them were things that Oliver would have been forced to attend anyway, but now they officially had her name on them. She’d moved from being Plus One to Felicity Smoak.

At least they had spelled her name right.

“Does he think we have no lives or something? This is...wow, this is a lot of dating. I’m not sure you’d even take me on this many dates if we were a real thing.” Felicity wrinkled her nose at one of the invitations.

She heard Oliver blow out a breath. “It’s not like I’m poor or anything. I could afford to take you on really nice dates.”

Felicity swiveled on her heels and tilted her head at him. She hadn’t tweaked his pride that badly, she thought. Or maybe not. He was always a little difficult to read at the office. “I meant more in the way that our nights are kind of busy helping you stick arrows in things, not that you’re not capable of providing, you know, a romantic night out.”

Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose and took the envelope from her. “Yeah.”

“I mean, you’re not really worried about that, are you? You were plenty romantic for, ah,” she fumbled. “You designed Helena that really nice uniform that one time? Granted, she used it to become a psycho murderer, but it’s the thought that counts. And I helped you with McKenna that time, you were perfectly sweet—”

“Let’s change the subject.” 

“Okay.” All too happy to stop talking, Felicity swiveled on her heels again and looked at her box of belongings on her desk. “I really thought I was getting fired.”

“I’d fire myself before I fired you. I’ll walk you down to your new office.”

“You don’t think people are going to resent me even more, do you?” She let him pick up the box and carry it down the hall for her. “I mean, they’re already out for my blood a little—Isabel keeps inviting me to these horrible lunches with the wives of the board, and I’ve thankfully been dodging, but who knows how long I can fake a spastic colon and get away with it—and the atmosphere around here’s not the greatest toward me still, though I think the donuts I brought in last week might have helped.”

“Why do you care what they think of you?”

“Because I do have to work here, you know. We can’t all be the heir to the company.”

“No,” said a voice. “Some of us can just marry him and climb the ladder that way.”

Felicity grimaced before she turned. She should have heard Isabel’s heel clicks coming since they pretty much echoed with brimstone and fire with every step. “Miss Rochev,” she said through her teeth.

Isabel gave her a patently false smile back. “Mrs. Queen.”

“It’s actually—you know what, never mind. What can we do for you?”

“I’m here to congratulate you, of course. An MIT grad leading our Applied Science department? This is a big ‘get’ for us. I’m sure you’ll turn that division right around.”

“Either that, or I’ll blow it all sky-high,” Felicity said, her smiling never dropping. Oliver coughed into his shoulder, since his hands were full. “We’ll just have to see.”

“Won’t we.” Isabel turned that fake, predatory smile on Oliver. “I’ve been informed that you two will be at the opening down at the Kreisberg tonight. I was surprised to see your names on the list—the artist is a close, personal friend. It may be a little too refined for an MIT nerd and a man who never went to college and yet seems determined to run a Fortune 500 company, but what do I know?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Oliver’s smile was strained at the edges. “If you’ll excuse us, Felicity’s got a lot to do with her new department.”

He didn’t fast-walk to get away from her, but he didn’t exactly amble, either, forcing Felicity to lengthen her stride. “We’re actually going to that?” she asked when they were out of earshot of Isabel’s horrible simpering. “I thought for sure you were going to come up with laryngitis or something. Weren’t we planning on looking into the Halcorp financials tonight?”

“Roy can put on the hood and take lead on that, if Sara’s backing him.” Oliver’s jawline was a study of frustration and barely bridled annoyance. “You and I have an art exhibit opening to get to, and we have to sell it. The sooner we get rid of that woman, the better.”

“Amen.”

* * *

“ _This_ is what she calls refined?”

“Shh.”

“No, seriously, I am not a connoisseur or anything, I know I’m not. I had, like, one art history class as an elective, but god, I could do this by setting the fake cat that my neighbor thinks I have on a box of watercolors and unleashing her on a canvas.” Felicity snorted into her wine and when Oliver looked torn between pained acceptance and amusement, smiled. “You don’t like it either. Admit it.”

“It’s called being polite.” He paused. “But no, it’s fairly…”

“Horrible? Pollockian in the laziest way possible? Potentially degrading to women?”

“Felicity.” Another pause, this time longer. “I was going to say ‘offensive to the eyeball and everything it stands for.’”

“Good one!” She giggled and tapped her wineglass against his.

They’d made it a little late to the Kreisberg Center for the Fine Arts, where a local artist—apparently a close, personal friend of one Miss Isabel Rochev—was celebrating an opening of his mixed media artwork for the general public. As far as Felicity was concerned, it was more like a mixed bag of crap, but she and Oliver had gamely played along, posing for the cameras outside and giving a soundbyte to the local news crew covering the event. 

They’d even played it up a bit, with Oliver’s arm wrapped around her keeping her close, which was _strange_. Not that it was unusual or anything, though. For somebody who’d been kept away from society for a brain-breaking number of years, Oliver didn’t appear to have any hang-ups regarding touch. It was just that it should be harder to fake that kind of affection and intimacy you’d expect from a newly-married couple, and yet they’d fallen into it with barely a hitch in their stride. She told herself they’d been through a lot together, that it was natural, especially for them.

But part of her knew it should feel weirder than it did.

And Oliver—well, he was like a whole new Oliver tonight.

“What do you think his inspiration was here?” he asked as they stood in front of one of the larger paintings in the room. Frankly, Felicity thought it looked like a palette of water colors had simply given up on life and had dive-bombed a sheet of canvas on their way down. Either that or somebody had swallowed watercolors and had puked. Neither was exactly flattering. 

“You’re not serious,” she said.

His eyes twinkled as he turned slightly to look at her. “You don’t see it as a metaphor for the meaninglessness of our everyday lives and the futility of the repetition we require to function in this society?”

“You _do_?”

“I’m a deep man, Felicity.”

“You’re deeply full of something, that’s for sure.”

He laughed and leaned close enough that she actually felt that neatly unkempt stubble brush against the shell of her ear. “How soon until we can leave, do you think?” he asked in a low voice.

It took every part of Felicity’s willpower not to shudder, which startled her. She’d had reactions to Oliver before—you couldn’t see the man shirtless, which he seemed to be pretty much every day, and not feel _something_ —but not like this. He was asking about getting to the Foundry, she knew that, but for one second her traitorous mind forgot all about that. For one second, he was just an incredibly sexy man standing close and asking to go somewhere a little more quiet.

And then she shook her head.

He leaned back a bare inch in concern. She could smell his aftershave, and it had never been _quite_ this distracting before. “Felicity?” he said.

She took a giant gulp of wine. “Sorry,” she said. “My mind was wandering.” She glanced around, judging the crowd (some of whom looked genuinely impressed by the ‘art’ on the walls) and eyeing Isabel in particular. “Twenty more minutes? Tops?”

“Okay. Are you feeling all right?”

“Fine! Great, even. Just a bit, ah, chilly there for a second. That’s all.”

“Want my jacket?” 

And smell that aftershave all the time when she was feeling like this? That would be a disaster. “It was a draft or something, I’m great now. Completely warm and toasty, almost like I’m wearing footie pajamas instead of these icepick heels and—ugh, footie pajamas, really?”

“I’m sure they’re cute footie pajamas,” Oliver said, grinning.

“You may think my verbal gaffes are cute, but I assure you, mister, you are alone in that.”

His grin only grew wider, which made her roll her eyes back at him. After a long moment, he said, “Are they pink footie pajamas? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Excuse you, I do not sleep in footie pajamas.”

“Yeah, you have those cute pajama pant things. I like the ones with the dancing muffins. It’s muffins, right? Or was it cupcakes?”

“They’re muffins.”

“Are you sure? They _could_ be cupcakes. I could send a picture to Diggle and get his opinion.”

“Are you blackmailing me through the use of my sleeping attire?” Felicity asked, putting a scandalized hand on her chest. 

“Who said anything about blackmail? I’m just saying that I’m sure Diggle would find them equally cute.”

“You’re, well, I don’t know what the word is, but you’re the worst.”

Oliver finished his wine and set the glass on a nearby tray as they wandered on through the crowd. Luckily, not too many people had stopped to talk to them. “Just how many of those sleeping pants do you own, anyway? There’s the cupcakes—”

“Muffins.”

“—and the Matroyshka dolls, the little wiener dogs, the beer steins and the German barmaid pattern, those shorts with the watermelon seeds.” He started to tick them off on his fingers. “The kittens. The fish heads, can’t forget about those.”

“Those were a joke gift, and I’m a little worried about how much attention you’ve paid to my pajamas. Do you have some kind of fetish?”

“They’re cute.” He shrugged. “Not hard to notice.”

She was saved from having to answer that by the arrival of one of the town aldermen, who wanted to congratulate them on their new marriage. Though Oliver always claimed small talk would be the death of him, he was actually one of those people that was freakishly talented at it, while she blundered along with all of the charm and grace of a verbal tank. Each gaffe, though, was met with silent laughter from Oliver that she could feel thanks to the fact that she was leaning against him. He’d pulled her close, probably because she had claimed to be chilled earlier, and she had nobody to blame for that lie but herself.

It was when they spotted the artist making his way over slowly that Oliver apparently decided he’d had enough socializing. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said to the investment banker who’d been talking their ears off for the past ten minutes, “we were just on our way out. It was lovely to see you again, though. Give me a call about that golf game.”

And pulling on Felicity’s arm, he guided them toward the coat check.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” she said in a bright voice as they headed outside. “One fake marriage date down, forty-two to go.”

“At least the food was pretty good,” Oliver said.

“I thought that was my line,” Felicity said, grinning. “You go get the car? I’ll call in and check on the team, see if they still need us to come in or if Roy’s got it covered.”

He squeezed her shoulder and strode off, muttering about how people were definitely going to notice that the Arrow shrank over a foot most nights, and she smiled as she pulled out her phone. She stepped around the side of the building and into a little alley, where she wouldn’t be overheard by any of Isabel’s posse that were wandering around.

It was as she was dialing that she sensed she wasn’t alone. Her thumb paused over the call button; she looked up and around, eyes narrowed. 

The man standing across the street just felt _off_. Maybe it was the dirty T-shirt with something she couldn’t read on it. It might have been the hollow stare, the dirty, unshaven look, or the unkempt hair. Or the way that he listed to the side gently, though there wasn’t a breeze. She’d parse it later. All she knew was that every single note pinged on Felicity’s creep radar even before she spotted the bottle in his hand.

“How could you?” he said as Felicity stood there frozen.

“L-leave me alone, or I’ll c-call the police.”

The man took a step closer and Felicity fumbled for her pepper spray. “How could you?” he said again. “How could you marry into that family? You know what they did to us—to Starling City.”

“Sir, back off or I will use this,” Felicity said, her heart pounding a staccato beat in her ears. “And trust me, this is the Rolls Royce of pepper spray, I can afford it, and I am told it _burns_ like the hottest fires of hell, if I believed in things like hell.”

“Yeah, I just bet you can afford it.”

“God, why do all of the drunks always find me? It’s not even nine o’clock—you need to really rethink your drinking habits, you know, this cannot be good for your liver.” Felicity, pepper spray firmly in hand, turned halfway. “Oliver!”

It was as she was turning back that she noticed three things: the rag sticking out of the man’s bottle, the lighter in his hand, and the hand-scribbled _503_ printed across his grungy white shirt. Her mind barely had time to cough up an expletive before she saw the spark of the lighter.

The rag caught fire immediately. 

Felicity turned and sprinted as hard as she could down the alley. She heard something hit the pavement behind her and a _splash_ , followed by a _whoosh_. A wall of blistering heat slammed into her back, so hot that she practically felt her skin blister on the spot. She shouted as she threw herself forward, out of the way of the flames she was sure were going to engulf her at any second.

Unfortunately, she didn’t see the side of the dumpster coming until it was too late.

The last thing she heard was somebody shouting her name.


	10. In Which Fallout Occurs

“Mr. Queen?”

Oliver’s eyes burned. He didn’t want to blink. If he blinked, he would see it again. A little dry-eye was worth it never to relive that nightmare again. He stared at the green speckled linoleum between his feet and willed himself not to blink.

“Mr. Queen, can you hear me? Oliver?”

He blinked, and just like that, he saw her face again, too pale, the dribble of blood trickling down her hairline. His jaw clenched all over again.

“Oliver Queen?”

Something touched his shoulder. Oliver jerked back, already halfway into a lunge. Only years of fastidious control kept him from putting the worried-looking nurse in front of him in an instinctual headlock. She took a surprised step backward as he collected himself.

“Yes?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Can I help you?”

“I tried to get your attention—sorry. But the doctor is ready to check you over now, so I’ll take you on back.”

“I don’t need to be checked over. I need to know how Felici—how my wife is doing.” He wanted to rub at his eyes, but didn’t dare. They’d wheeled Felicity’s stretcher away nearly ten minutes before and he was going crazy in the waiting room, in his shirt that reeked of smoke and staring at the floor between his shoes. Diggle had said he was on his way, but that felt like hours ago. Why wasn’t there any news on Felicity? “They said it wouldn’t take long before there’s news, and I don’t want to leave just in case.”

“We’ll keep you updated while the doctor checks you over, Mr. Queen.” The nurse frowned at him.

“I’m fine, I don’t need anybody to look at it.”

“You’re very obviously showing some second degree burns on your arm,” the nurse said. “A doctor should look at those.”

“It’s fine, I don’t need—”

A throat cleared from somewhere behind him, and he turned to see Detective Lance, wearing a rumpled shirt and holding a dripping umbrella. “More evidence’ll only help the case against the guy that did this to your wife, Queen,” he said, only a tiny derisive note on the word _wife_. “Get that arm looked at and get it on the record so we can put this bastard away. I may not like you much, but she’s a peach, and I’m not happy people are throwing homemade bombs at her.”

“You and me both,” Oliver said through his teeth.

Lance had a point, so Oliver gave in and followed the nurse. His jacket was a lost cause: he’d used it to smother one of the flames that had caught Felicity’s skirt and then to cover her while she lay in the street unconscious. And he barely even felt the burns up and down his arms. He was more concerned about Felicity.

The minute she was awake, he was going to go and stick an arrow in the bastard that had done this to her. The men working the valet stand had tackled the bomber to the ground and had held him down while he ranted and raved about the earthquake. Oliver hadn’t had time to deliver retribution yet: he’d been too busy focused on trying to wake Felicity, who’d been too pale, too silent. She’d been breathing and her pupils had responded to light, which he knew was a good sign.

But she hadn’t woken up.

“Hey, Queen,” Lance called before Oliver and the nurse disappeared around the corner. “Don’t go anywhere. We’ve got questions.”

“You always do,” Oliver said, and followed the nurse back to the examination room. He barely paid attention to the doctor, answering on autopilot. When they prodded his arm, he winced, but he kept his eyes open. He didn’t want to see Felicity’s face like that again.

When the door to the examination room opened, he was up like a shot, but it was only Thea. “Ollie, it’s all over the news,” she said, hugging him tightly. “They said somebody attacked you? What the hell happened?”

“Felicity,” he said. “Somebody threw a Molotov Cocktail at her.”

Thea gasped.

“It missed, for the most part, and I don’t think…” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know. It was—one of those earthquake quacks, one of the ones that always go after Mom. They must have known we were at the exhibit opening and she was alone because I was getting the car and…” He looked down. His hands, which had remained steady through too many crises to count, were shaking. He ran them over his face. “They’re checking her over now, but nobody will _tell me anything_.”

“I just ran into John outside, and he had that formidable ex-Army look on his face, so if anybody’s going to get information out of them, it’ll be him. Want me to help?”

Before he could answer, the door opened again. This time it was a different nurse that poked her head in. “Mr. Queen?”

Thea wordlessly pointed at him, as though it weren’t obvious from the way he’d shot to his feet again. “Any news?” he asked.

“She’s awake, and she’s asking for you.”

He expended quite a bit of his considerable self-control by not simply passing the nurse and finding his own way to Felicity’s room. It would fit in with the image of the doting husband the press and the publicity department wanted to play, he knew, but Felicity wouldn’t thank him for barging in on her like a panicked idiot. And he knew she was going to be grumpy enough about having to go to the hospital instead of the Foundry anyway.

None of that stopped him from letting out a long breath in relief when he was ushered inside and saw her sitting upright.

“Are you sure sweatpants aren’t a thing we can negotiate here?” she was asking her doctor when he stepped in. “Because these hospital gowns, in addition to being super not-flattering, are really a horrible color for me even when I’m not rocking the corpse-like pallor.”

“Better the pallor than actually being the corpse,” Oliver said.

She turned—and grimaced as she apparently did so too quickly, no doubt jarring her sore neck. He hadn’t heard her hit the dumpster when she’d dodged the Molotov cocktail, but the way she’d been lying on the pavement, unconscious, he’d worried she had somehow broken her neck. But now, quite a bit later, she looked leagues better. Her skin was pale, true, but her eyes were open and fixed on him and she was alive and upright. She leaned forward. “Oliver!”

“Hi.” He was at her side in an instant, crouching next to the bed so she wouldn’t have to look up at him. He cupped his hand around her cheek without thinking about it. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I tried to play the drums with my forehead. Oww.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “You should know you’re blurry. Did you do that on purpose or is it just your handsomeness giving up the ghost and deciding to leave your face?”

“What?” Oliver asked, looking in concern at the doctor. “Is that normal?”

“With a concussion? Very much so.”

“I have one of those,” Felicity said, keeping her eyes closed. “Go figure, right? I’ve had one before, but that time it was totally Tina Mack’s fault for trying to head-butt the ball and getting my forehead instead. Why my mom insisted I play indoor soccer is one of those eternal mysteries, given my absolute lack of coordination and—” She opened her eyes and blinked a few times. “What was I saying?”

“Some confusion is also to be expected,” the doctor said, and introduced himself. “I need to administer a neurological exam on Miss Smoak. We’re pretty sure it’s a concussion, but we do need to ascertain the severity of it. You’re welcome to stick around for the exam, if you wish, Mr. Queen.”

“Please.” Felicity scrambled to grab his hand. “Don’t leave. You’re blurry, but you’re familiar.”

“It’s fine.”

“Though maybe you should go because I’m kind of under the impression that my verbal filter is even more nonexistent than usual and it may not be safe—”

Oliver suddenly wanted to laugh. He was halfway reaching to smooth her hair back before he remembered the concussion and the angry red mark at her hairline. “Can’t be worse than anything else I’ve gone through tonight.”

“You say that _now_ ,” Felicity said.

“I’m sure I can handle it.”

Felicity’s usual humor—and her unexpected tangents—helped him keep a leash on his emotions as she ran through the tests. The image of her lying still on the pavement stayed burned in his memory, but he held her hand and interjected the appropriate comments at the right points. To most of the world, he appeared to be the regular Oliver Queen, worried but relieved. Felicity wasn’t fooled by his act; he could see her slipping cautious glances at him every few minutes whenever there was a pause in the doctor’s questions, and she squeezed his hand a couple of times. It helped keep him calm.

Until, of course, Oliver returned from updating Diggle and Sara outside the room to find Detective Lance standing beside Felicity’s bed, his notepad in hand. He stopped with one hand on the doorknob and had to breathe through his nose several times to contain the sharp fury. “Don’t you think this can wait until she’s feeling better?” he said.

“Cute overprotective act, Queen. Witness said she was up for it.”

“She has a concussion, I highly doubt that—”

“The sooner we get this over, the better,” Felicity said. “Don’t you think?”

“I think you need some time. You can do this later.”

“Oliver, I’m fine.”

“I insist,” Oliver said, as he rather wanted one of the family lawyers to be present.

But Felicity made a face and grabbed his hand again. “Ignore him,” she told Detective Lance. “He’s grumpy because of low blood sugar or something. I can answer questions. Did you catch the guy?”

‘Low blood sugar?’ Oliver mouthed at her.

“We apprehended a suspect, yes, but I’m not able to say more at this time.” At least Lance sounded amused rather than pissed off, which had been his default setting since the fake marriage had taken place, ending Oliver’s relationship with Sara. In fact, the man looked at Felicity with something approaching fatherly fondness. “Feel up to telling me what happened in your own words before you took a dive into the side of a dumpster?”

“Not a thing I recommend. I’d stepped away from Oliver to—” Felicity’s forehead scrunched up. “I think I was making a phone call? It’s a little blurry. But he was there, across the street, and he said some stuff about marrying into the Queens and how I shouldn’t have done that.”

Lance snorted. Oliver rolled his eyes. The 503 Freaks, as they’d taken to calling themselves on message boards, had been mostly harmless. A few threats, some angry letters to his mother at prison.

Up until now.

Now he was going to hunt every one of them down. It was time for the Arrow to start delivering some messages.

“Stop that,” Felicity said now, glaring at Lance. “Being married to Oliver’s not that bad. I like it.”

“High words of praise from your sweetheart there, Queen.”

Oliver clenched the hand not holding Felicity’s into a fist. “I’m sorry, are we on trial here? Because need I remind you, my wife was attacked tonight with a homemade bomb.”

“Noted.” Lance scribbled something on his pad. Oliver didn’t give a damn what he put down, but if Lance kept up this snippy line of questioning, he was going to stuff that pad down the man’s throat. “Can you give me any details about the man, Miss Smoak?”

Oliver stayed quiet through the questioning until it was his turn to describe what had happened, and he kept his answer curt. At no point did he mention the way his heart had dropped at hearing Felicity call his name, or the terror of facing the flames from the bomb and thinking that Felicity might be underneath them. He spoke in short sentences, getting directly to the point. He’d gone after Felicity and had found her, had put out any flames that had come near her, and he had very carefully stayed on one side of the street while the valet workers held down the bomber on the other. The man had ranted and raved and had finally broken down into bitter sobbing.

If Oliver had crossed that street, he would have killed him.

He wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

“So that’s it, that’s what happened,” he said now, well aware that Felicity’s light grip on his hand had changed to an iron vise around his fingers. He didn’t look at her face, as he didn’t want to see the understanding in her eyes that he knew he would find. He needed to keep control of his feelings, at least until Lance left. “I’ll be happy to pick him out of a lineup, if you need me to.”

“Ditto. Or I will at some future point. Getting kind of sleepy.” Felicity’s eyes closed. “Can we take a rain-check on the rest of your questions, Detective? I want to sleep.”

She wouldn’t be getting much of that tonight, Oliver knew, as he’d already been instructed to wake her every few hours. But he still turned and looked pointedly at Lance.

For all of his faults, the man was fairly good at picking up cues. “Sure thing,” he said, tucking his notepad into the pocket of his wrinkled shirt. “I’ll give you both a call if I can think of anything else. You focus on getting better, Miss Smoak.”

“Will do.”

“Mr. Queen,” Lance said, giving him the barest of nods as he headed toward the door, and Oliver nodded back.

But Lance didn’t leave. Instead, he paused in the doorway and turned back to look at them both. “Actually, one question before I go. Can you give me a list of people who knew you would be at the reception tonight?”

Felicity opened her eyes to exchange a puzzled look with Oliver. “Uh, let’s see. Di—Oliver’s bodyguard knew, John Diggle, but he wouldn’t be working with this guy, if that’s what you’re getting at. I mean, he knows everything Oliver does, that’s part of him being security. And Mr. Devlin at Queen Consolidated, he’s the one that got us the tickets. I think I told Sara when I talked to her on the phone earlier because I had a question about which dress I should wear, and she might wear a lot of black, but she’s got surprisingly good fashion sense—”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, shaking his head in amused defeat.

“What? She does! The woman just has an eye for these things.”

“Everybody who was there would have seen us, Detective,” Oliver said. “There were cameras covering the event, and I’m sure the gossip blogs are already reporting it. I don’t think the guy was working with anybody.”

“He was way too unhinged,” Felicity said, nodding emphatically and then cringing. “Ow. I shouldn’t do that. And, oh, Isabel taunted us about it earlier, remember? God, she’s the worst. You really need better rivals, Oliver.”

“Rivals?” Lance said, already reaching for his shirt pocket.

“Not like that. Business rivals, if anything, which is grounds for corporate espionage stuff and not ker-splodey. She’s awful, but she’s not _evil_.” Felicity paused and a line appeared between her eyebrows in worry. “Is she?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t her,” Oliver said.

“Are you?” Lance asked, raised an eyebrow.

“She’s a corporate nightmare, but she’s not a terrorist. She’d have more effective ways to strike out at me than by sending a bomb nut after Felicity.”

Lance made a noise in the back of his throat. “You’d be surprised. Good night.”

After the door shut behind the detective, Felicity let her eyes drift closed yet again. “I’d feel bad about sending him after Isabel Rochev, but frankly at this point, she deserves it. The art at that exhibit was _really_ terrible.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, laughing helplessly.

“You were thinking it, too. Do you think it’s really her, though?”

“I don’t know.” He looked down at his fist, which was still clenched. “But I aim to find out.”

He said it in his arrow voice, the one that had personally frightened at least of the higher-ups in the Russian mob, so the last thing he expected was for Felicity’s chest to shake with laughter. “Good one,” she said, and he turned to her in confusion. “ _Aim_ to find out? You’re the Arrow. How long have you been sitting on that one? It’s brilliant.”

“I…am going to go sign the paperwork to get you out of here.”

“The real benefits of marriage,” Felicity said, and considerably unsettled, he slipped out of the hospital room and went off to find the orderly, just glad that his wi—his Felicity was okay.


	11. In Which Felicity Gets a Bodyguard that Has Nothing to Do with the Inevitable Disaster

She noticed the smell of aftershave before she even realized she was beginning to wake. Her first thought was to wonder if she’d somehow fallen asleep using Oliver’s shoulder as a pillow again. She really should stop doing that, even though he never complained and—

Her second thought was that everything hurt way worse than her hangovers usually did.

She was used to head-pain. A combination of awesome genetics and a memorable time during sophomore year ensured she could handle hangovers. Stress headaches were part and parcel of her life these days. But this was worse: deeper and sharper, stabbing into her temples and throbbing along to the rhythm of her heartbeat. She groaned and scrunched her eyes shut tighter as though that would ward away the pain. She had one fleeting hope that sleep might claim her again, but the dull ache spreading from the base of her skull quickly dashed that to pieces.

Resigned to the fact that she had no choice but to accept this, Felicity opened her eyes.

Her own instinctive shriek made her wince.

This was not her bedroom. Not her bedroom at home, not her bedroom in Oliver’s house, not even her bedroom in Vegas. She’d been in here a couple times only—once when Oliver had given her the grand tour, once to steal some Q-tips from his bathroom—but she knew instantly where she was. In Oliver’s room.

In Oliver’s bed.

She sat up fast enough to make her head spin. How the hell had had she gotten here? What was she doing in Oliver’s bed? Surely, this had to be some kind of mistake. They’d probably just had a late night at the Foundry or…she stopped, a wave of cold crashing over her entire body.

She couldn’t remember a thing.

Sure, she knew her name, her sign, the serial numbers for every computer she’d ever owned. She could remember her grades and her phone number, but she had absolutely no memory of how she’d gotten here. She looked around in a panic and spotted the white sheet of paper on the nightstand, held down by one of those hand-carved arrowheads that she should probably tell him not to leave out in plain sight. A glass of water with condensation gathered in a ring at the base sat next to the note.

“Please don’t be a note telling me I’ve got tragic soap opera memory loss,” she said, diving for the paper even though it hurt her throbbing head. She heard something clatter to the ground when she picked up the page, but she was too busy pulling on her glasses to care.

_Felicity—_

_If the past three times I’ve woken you up are anything to go by, you’ve got questions. I’ll do my best to answer them in order:_

_You’re not suffering from a daytime TV disease. The doctor said some memory loss is normal. You’ve got a concussion. Take the pills. They’ll help._

“Oh. A concussion. That makes sense—wait, _what_?”

_You’re in here because you insisted and I couldn’t stop you. I took your heels out of the hallway and put them in your room, but the shirt was all you (I turned around and didn’t peek)._

“The shirt?” Felicity asked aloud, squinting at that line to make sure she’d read it right. “What shirt?”

And with a growing sense of horror, she looked down. A quick breath later, she yanked the covers off, and groaned.

On Oliver, she knew, the shirt was soft and fit well in that effortless T-shirt way some guys just had. On her, it was mercifully a little bigger and longer but…

She was wearing Oliver’s shirt, in his bed, with no memory of how she’d gotten there—and she didn’t have any pants on. She’d never tasted social embarrassment quite this acutely in the back of her throat before. Felicity stared down at her bare legs with almost a disaffected interest, wondering exactly how much they’d betrayed her last night. She could only hope that maybe Oliver had slept on the couch and there had just been some kind of mix-up. She looked back at the note.

_And no, I don’t mind sharing the bed._

Nope. Which meant she’d probably drooled on him, hogged his bed, and had flashed him several times with—she lifted the hem of the shirt a little to check—okay, at least that was some of her good underwear and not something with Hello Kitty or anything like that. But still. This was…this was…that was way too many boundaries crossed way too quickly, fake-married or not. She rubbed a hand down her face and looked around. Where was her phone? She needed to check stock prices and her various alerts and why did she have a concussion? Oliver really needed to not bury the lead like this.

_I took away your phone and your tablet and you can have them back after the painkillers kick in. We’re out in the kitchen. – Oliver_

“We’re?” Felicity asked aloud, setting the letter aside. She looked around for the painkillers since those did sound like an excellent idea, finding one on the floor and the other wedged behind Oliver’s little bamboo lamp (why did he have that? Was it actually soothing to remember the island?). She swallowed both and drank as much of the water as she could without throwing it back up.

It was as she was putting the glass back on the nightstand that the haze finally lifted and she remembered. The art opening, Isabel’s snooty remarks, the terrible artwork. Laughing with Oliver. A man standing on the other side of the street, something _off_ about the way that he stood and the way that he looked at her. The bright flames of the bottle as it arced toward her.

Holding Oliver’s hand at the hospital. The grin on his face as she burrowed into the blankets and told him to go shoot himself in the foot with an arrow or something, and why couldn’t he just let her _sleep_? She distinctly remembered a twenty-minute soliloquy about just how soft his pillows were and how she was never leaving and they would simply have to change her address to this bed. And when Oliver had proposed that that might not be possible with the post-office, she remembered offering to hack it for him.

Felicity’s groan had nothing to do with the headache. “Well, that’s not mortifying at all,” she said, pushing herself to her feet. She debated her options: she could risk running into Oliver and this mysterious ‘we’ in the dining room on the way to pick up pants in her room, or she could just borrow some of Oliver’s. That was practically a no-brainer. She crossed to Oliver’s dresser, digging through until she found a pair of sweatpants. She had to roll up the waist several times to make them short enough to fit her, but there was no way in hell she was wandering around Oliver’s apartment without pants.

And it turned out that was a good thing, for she opened his bedroom door and found herself face to face with an assassin.

“Good morning,” Nyssa al Ghul, Heir to the Demon, said. The scion of the world’s deadliest league crossed her arms over the chest of what was obviously one of Sara’s old high school shirts. She leaned against the wall opposite the door, one brow arched.

Felicity barely had the energy to gawk properly, so she just squinted. “You’re not here to kill me, are you? If you are, make it quick.”

“It would inconvenience me to murder my landlady,” Nyssa said.

“Your…right. That’s right. My place, you’re staying at it. Got it.” Very belatedly, it occurred to her that if Nyssa wasn’t there to kill her—and she wasn’t entirely sure she was out of the woods there, actually—then it was pretty strange to find the woman standing in Oliver’s hallway, considering the way the two felt about each other. “Good morning?”

Nyssa nodded, like she’d expected Felicity to remember basic etiquette the entire time. “How does your head feel?”

“Like I let Sara play target practice with her bo staff on my forehead.”

“Hey,” came Sara’s voice from down the hallway.

“That was actually a compliment, if you think about it,” she called back. “You never miss. What are you doing here? If it’s to check on me, really, I’m fine.”

“Oliver assured us you would make a full recovery,” Nyssa said. “Sara did wish to check in on you, but that’s not why we’re here.”

“It’s not?” Felicity asked.

Nyssa removed her hand from behind her back and held out a copy of _The Daily Star_ toward her. Felicity registered the date in the corner before the headline, and more importantly, the front-page picture, leaked through.

_LOCAL MAN ATTEMPTS TO BLOW UP THE NEW MRS. QUEEN._

And right beneath it, in that muddy color the cheap papers preferred, was a very clear shot of Oliver leaning over a stretcher with a frantic look on her face. Felicity felt her bile rise.

“I really, really never look good unconscious,” she said.

“Very few of us do.” This time Sara actually appeared around the corner. She leaned a shoulder against the wall and studied Felicity. “News media’s going crazy. They got a lot of footage of Oliver shouting at them to keep back and harassing some poor EMTs.”

“He did what?”

“Your Cinderella story just got a new chapter.” Sara’s grin was crooked and only partially humorless. “I had to turn off your phone because it kept buzzing with Google alerts.”

Felicity only closed her eyes. “This is a nightmare.”

“The media thinks you’ve got a young, hot heir to millions—”

Nyssa scowled.

“—completely head over heels in love with you,” Sara said, ignoring her girlfriend and taking the paper from Felicity. She folded it in half and held the photo up to the light. “He certainly looks the part in this picture, doesn’t he?”

“He’s worried because I’m knocked out. He’d look like that for anybody on the team.”

“Even Roy?” Sara asked.

Felicity ran her hand down her face in hopes of staving off some of the pounding from her headache. “Sara, if you’re trying to imply something here, you should just spell it out. I’ve got a concussion and I find I’m at a disadvantage cognitively. Just what are you trying to say?”

“I’m just saying that—”

Nyssa murmured Sara’s Arabic name. Instantly, all mischievousness vanished from Sara’s face. She said something back that had Nyssa actually shrugging.

“Sorry. I was just having a bit of fun at your expense,” Sara said. “Is a peace offering in the form of coffee okay?”

“More than okay.” Felicity’s stomach had dropped; she knew exactly what Sara was implying, but Sara was also crazy. The marriage was a fake, Oliver was pretending for the cameras, and there wasn’t anything between Oliver and her but friendship. Anything more than that would be crazy. He went for sophisticated and collected women, and right now she was a mess in borrowed clothes. Her head hurt too much, this renewed media coverage was an absolute nightmare, and her fingers positively itched without her tablet or her phone around. And she had more important things to focus on. “Where’s Oliver?”

“He ran out to the bakery. Nyssa and I offered to stay and watch over you.” Sara led the way to the kitchen and padded over to the coffeemaker, where she poured Felicity a mug. “Me because I’m just that nice and Nyssa because it’s her job now.”

“What?”

Nyssa folded her arms over her chest. “I have been seeking temporary employment in Starling City. I no longer have to look. Oliver has hired me as your head of security.”

“My what?” Just how hard had she hit her head?

“I’ll be working with Digg, as you call him, to ensure that you are safe and that last night does not happen again.”

“Do I get any say in this?” Felicity asked.

Sara and Nyssa shook their heads in tandem.

“Why not?”

“Well, because of this.” Sara set the coffee cup in front of Felicity and pulled her tablet out of a drawer. With surprising ease, she called up a screen and slid the tablet to Felicity. “Look. Somebody drew you and Oliver.”

“Why is he carrying me in his arms like that? And why am I unconscious? Couldn’t they have at least made me conscious?” As much as she wanted to put her head down on the counter, she forced herself to scroll through the gathering of drawings, photographs, and tweets Sara had apparently been collecting on her behalf. “None of this really explains why I need a head of security.”

“Because the eyes of the world are on the Queen family,” Nyssa said. “And if obvious, public steps are not made against the group who has attacked you, will people not find it peculiar?”

“So you’re willing to be an obvious, public step?” Felicity asked. She raised her eyebrows before the concussion reminded her that this was a bad idea.

Nyssa only smiled. “Nobody ever pays attention to the bodyguard.”

“I won’t be the Whitney to your Kevin. Just putting that out there.”

“I do not understand the reference,” Nyssa said.

“I do, and I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen. You’re certainly not getting my blessing.” Sara knocked her knuckles lightly against Felicity’s shoulder as she passed. “Dad arrested the guy who did this to you, but the other 503 Freaks are out there. It makes sense you’d have security.”

“And my security is going to be one of the top assassins in the world?” Felicity asked.

“I mean, if you’re going to hire somebody for the job, might as well get the best.”

There wasn’t a way out of this without arguing against logic, Felicity realized. Even with her head hurting—though the pain was starting to dissolve—she could see that Sara and Nyssa had a point. She’d been attacked publicly the night before. If it had been attached to the Arrow, they would have handled it privately, with Oliver whisking her away before the press could get involved. But now she was trending again, Isabel still had the private investigators following them, and Nyssa appeared to be in on their secret. So really, it was easier overall.

She still sighed, though. “The guy that did this is in jail?”

“And we convinced Oliver to leave him alone for now. Speaking of Oliver…”

Sara must have ears like a cat, Felicity decided. Two seconds later, she heard the key in the front door and Oliver stepped inside with a tray of coffees and a paper bag under his arm. His entire face seemed to light up when he spotted her sitting at the kitchen island. “Oh, hey, you’re up.”

“You make it sound like I was going to sleep all day,” Felicity said, abruptly aware that she was still wearing the sweatpants.

He only grinned as he came around the couch. “You were holding onto the pillow kind of tightly.”

“Oh, god,” Felicity said, burying her face in her hands once more.

To her surprise, she felt Oliver’s hands pull them away a second later and he crouched a little, studying her face. His fingers brushed under her chin as he looked at the bump on her forehead. “Your eyes look a lot clearer. You look like the sleep helped.”

“Yes, I’m coherent now,” Felicity said. “And I am fully aware of which bed is my own now, so you’re safe.”

Oliver’s grin only broadened. “You said mine was better. Want a bagel? I went out to that bakery you told me about, the one on Fourth. You were singing a song about lox last night—”

“I was not,” Felicity said, and paused. She didn’t remember that, but… “Was I?”

“No. That one, I can safely say you didn’t do,” Oliver said.

Sara cleared her throat. Felicity jumped and Oliver jerked back as though he’d been burned. They turned as one to look at Sara. “Just making sure you didn’t forget we were here,” Sara said.

Behind her, Nyssa rubbed her chin with her thumb and Felicity got the feeling she was actually covering a smile.

Oliver gave her a tight smile and picked up one of the cups. “Of course not. Your chai latte. And hot water.”

Nyssa inclined her head, just once.

Oliver began unloading quite a spread from the bakery bag, nearly covering half of the island with bagels and possible toppings. “You never said how you were feeling,” he said as he set a little plastic tub of lox by Felicity. “How’s your head? I left you some painkillers. Did you see them?”

Nyssa muttered something to Sara under her breath as she drowned a tea bag she’d pulled from her pocket.

“What?” Sara asked back in a louder whisper. “I think it’s cute.”

Felicity gave them both a look. “Yes, I took them. Thank you,” she told Oliver. “You hired Nyssa as my bodyguard without asking me about it?”

“It was Digg’s idea. He stopped by earlier on his way to talk to Thea about taking on some additional security, and said to tell you he hopes you feel better quickly.”

Felicity nodded. “You’re getting Thea a bodyguard? She’s not going to like that very much.”

“Well, until this situation with those terrorists is under control, she’ll just have to deal. Digg’s calling in some favors and has already got a team for my mother. Now we just have to get Thea set up.” Oliver licked cream cheese off of his thumb and picked up his buzzing phone. “This should be Digg, telling me he’s got it all set up now.”

This time it was Felicity, Sara, and even Nyssa that exchanged a look as Oliver hit the talk button on his phone. “Digg, what’s up?”

A long pause followed. Then: “She said _what_?”

* * *

“Technically what you’re talking about is sororicide. I think. Wait, that actually might be when one sister kills another. I should Google that. I mean, I know fratricide is killing your brother and I think that killer can be gender-neutral in that case…”

Oliver tapped his earwig with a gloved finger. “Felicity, I am not actually going to kill my sister.”

“Really? Because you’ve said so...” On the other end of the line, there was a pause. “Seven times.”

“It’s just a thing that—were you counting?”

“I got curious. It’s not like there’s not much else to do unless you find a guy to beat up.”

Felicity had a point. She’d hacked into the police database—which she claimed wasn’t really hacking because technically, she’d already built that back door and the crime was committed—and had discovered that the chief of police had requested extra units on patrol. The 503 Freaks had officially stepped up their game and there were concerns that the group might view any affluent citizens of Starling City as targets rather than the Queens and anybody involved in the Undertaking. And, as Felicity had put it, they couldn’t have their biggest donors in danger. It was bad for morale.

So Oliver was mostly relegated to a few patrols of the Glades and searching for any of his usual informants. They’d all scattered, no doubt afraid to be connected to the group that had targeted a society darling. It was almost, Oliver thought as he made a rolling jump from one rooftop to the next, as if they understood that Felicity Smoak was somehow important to the Hood, and that heads were going to roll.

And they _were_.

Starting with his sister’s.

“I am not trying to smother her,” he said now, propping one foot up on the lip running around the edge of the roof. “But how does she not see that there are very dangerous individuals targeting all of us? I am trying to protect her. She’s being far too stubborn about this. I don’t like it.”

“Gee, a stubborn Queen,” Felicity said. “I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked.”

Oliver bit his tongue before he could call her a smartass. That was more a reply he saved for Diggle.

“You can stop worrying, you know. She’s upstairs. I’m keeping an eye on her and you know Roy wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

“He’d better not, if he knows what’s good for him.”

“He’d better not, if he knows what’s good for him,” Felicity said back to him in her mimicking Oliver voice, which was frankly a terrible impression. “You know that’s what you sound like, right?”

“I’m actually sure it’s not,” Oliver said.

“That’s for me to decide.” He could all but hear her turn up her nose at him, and some humor finally broke through his bad mood. He’d spent most of the day arguing with Thea about her need for a security detail. At least until these terrorists were under control. But Thea remained adamant: she was not uprooting her life for some ambiguous threat when Felicity’s attacker might have just been a drunken solo act. Between trying to convince Thea to take on extra security and attempting to coerce Felicity into taking a night off and resting up after her injury, it had been a very trying day.

He’d won neither argument, which was why he was prowling the Glades looking for his sources and why he had Felicity in his ear. At least she’d promised to stay in the Foundry and call Diggle or Roy for backup if anything happened.

At this point, if minor victories were all that he could win, he’d very well accept that—until he could find something better, at any rate.

“You know I’m just giving you a hard time, right?” Felicity’s voice cut through his reverie. “I’m actually with you on this one. I wish she would take on some security, too. At least until we get to the bottom of this.”

Oliver straightened and ignored the warm feeling that had settled behind his sternum. “Any leads, by the way?”

“Trust me, I’ll shout ‘Eureka’ if I find any. You’ll probably be the first to know, and likely at the worst moment possible.”

He had to smile at that. “Thanks.”

“We believe in going the extra mile here at Arrow Enterprises—”

“No,” Oliver said.

Felicity chuckled once and the line went quiet, save for the familiar and welcome tap of her fingertips against the keyboard. Oliver popped his neck and shoulders, stretched out his troublesome hamstring, and ran, easily making the leap between buildings and rolling to a stop on the roof next door. He moved over to the opposite side of the building and performed a visual sweep of the area, noting the police car patrolling a couple blocks away. The reinforced police presence seemed to be doing its job. Now, if only he could find any of his informants and start getting to the bottom of this. Felicity hadn’t been seriously injured, but…

He looked down and carefully unclenched his fist. Maybe he should call it a night and let Felicity do her work. Once she had some fresh leads for him, he could start kicking in doors. And, he decided as he pulled out a grappling arrow, he should pick up some Big Belly Burger on the way. Felicity had to be getting hungry.

It was as he was nocking the arrow that the world and the building beneath him rumbled. Instantly, he dropped to a knee, but it was only a sharp tremor and a muffled bang in the distance. Not an earthquake, but an explosion.

“Felicity?” he said, activating his earpiece in alarm. He could already see smoke rising in a messy column, four or five blocks away.

“Yeah, I heard it.” The typing had turned frantic. “911 calls are rolling in now. Where are you—”

“On my way to it.” He abseiled down the building and raced for the motorcycle, already kicking it into gear mid-jump. Rocks pelted the brick wall behind him as he peeled out. Around him, he heard the cacophony of sirens, but he pushed the bike harder. If somebody was trapped in that building, wherever it was, the fire department would never get there in time.

Two blocks from the fire, his entire body went cold. _No,_ he thought.

“Oliver!” Felicity’s voice was panicked now. “They just said the address on the police scanner, it’s—”

“Yeah, I know,” Oliver said, swerving the bike to a stop and flipping up the visor on his helmet to get a good look at the flames engulfing the first floor of a two-story building. A quick scan showed him that most of the residents were standing in the street in their pajamas, looking baffled and upset. “She’s still upstairs?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t even know.”

“Tell Roy. I’m going to sweep the rest of the building.”

He hit the kickstand on the bike and ran for the building while on the first floor, Thea and Roy’s apartment burned on, the flames licking up in the darkness above.

* * *

“You can stop treating me like I’m going to break any time now.” Thea rolled her eyes for what felt like the thirtieth time as they finally stepped into the lobby of Oliver’s apartment building, past the crowd of reporters that had absolutely swarmed the door. “I wasn’t even anywhere near it when it blew, I was at work—”

“Just getting you past security, Miss Queen. We don’t know who’s out there that might want to cause you harm.” Diggle, in his usual crime fighting black tee and dark jeans, had a hold of Thea’s arm, with Oliver close behind. They’d formed what Felicity had once called a meat shield to protect Thea from the media. Oliver suddenly found the term quite fitting. The press had seemed even more like jackals than ever.

“They’re journalists,” Thea said. “I’ve been dealing with them practically my whole life. Why are you two hovering?”

“Brother’s privilege,” Oliver said, and Thea scowled.

She looked tired and far more shaken than Oliver suspected she cared to. Even with most of her things still at the mansion, the loss of that crummy apartment she shared with Roy was a hard hit. Underneath Diggle’s jacket, she seemed impossibly frail. It made Oliver’s stomach churn. He didn’t like seeing his sister that way, reduced by her shock and the brutal crime.

And since she had absolutely refused to go stay so far out of the city—“I have to be here for _work_ , Ollie, I can’t just drive an hour each way!”—they had come up with Plan B.

Which was his apartment.

His and Felicity’s apartment now, to the world.

Oliver kept his jaw tight as he pressed the button for the elevator. “From now on, you don’t go anywhere without one of Digg’s associates,” he said.

“They didn’t attack me, they blew up my apartment, and—”

“They nearly killed Felicity, and given that their MO seems to be fire, I’d rather not take chances.”

Thea sighed—and sniffled a tiny bit, which Oliver pretended not to hear. It would only spell trouble for both of them if he acknowledged it. “Fine,” Thea said, ice dripping from the word. She sniffled again. “But I’m only going along with it because I happen to value my face and I’m not a fan of third degree burns.” 

Diggle gave Oliver a slight smile over her head as they all stepped onto the elevator together.

“You realize it’s totally lame that I’m staying with you. You’re a newlywed. I can stay with Roy—”

“In the Glades?” Oliver asked.

“I’m going to be there, every day, duh. How does your new wife feel about la familia crashing her fairy tale life already?”

“Actually,” Felicity said, as the elevator doors opened to reveal her standing in the hallway, “I’m okay with it, I promise. You’re not crashing. You’re—you’re family.” She pushed her glasses up, one of her many nervous tics, and gave Thea a hesitant smile.

Oliver merely swiveled on one heel to give Thea a “See?” look. She rolled her eyes back at him.

“How are you doing? Oliver said you weren’t anywhere near, but wow, if my apartment blew up, I’d be a wreck. Can I get you anything? We’ve got cocoa and coffee, and some of those awful muscle milk drinks Oliver likes or…”

Thea shook her head and stepped forward to put her hands on Felicity’s shoulders. “Breathe. I’m just the sister-in-law, not a fire-breathing dragon. You don’t have to play hostess. Just point me to my cell.”

“Cell?” Felicity turned her confused look on Diggle and Oliver as Thea squeezed her shoulders and brushed past her into the open apartment door. 

“Thea is convinced that she’s being held against her will. When really all we’re trying to do is protect her,” Oliver said, raising his voice at the end. Thea, stomping away to the room, just flipped him off, which made Oliver breathe through his teeth for a few seconds. He worked his hand until he could keep his voice level. “You’re getting a sister, they said. You’ll love having a sister, they said. She’ll be the light of your life, they said.”

“Aw.” Felicity wrapped her arms around his arm and hugged it, resting her head against his shoulder for a second. “Her apartment blew up. She’s processing. You just have to give her some time.”

“Personally, I’ve processed all I can tonight, so I’m going to head out. My buddy will be here in the morning to escort Thea around.”

“Is this an Army buddy?” Felicity asked, perking up.

“Nope. Mossad. She _might_ be a match for Thea.”

“I doubt it,” Oliver said under his breath.

Diggle made it all the way back to the elevator before a thought evidently occurred to him. “How many bedrooms did you say this place had, again?”

“I see what you’re getting at, John Diggle,” Felicity said.

Oliver looked between them, confused.

“Thea doesn’t know,” Felicity said. “That we’re not really married, remember? That’s why I rushed home. I had to get all of my stuff out of the guest bedroom.”

It hit Oliver at once. “So your stuff is…”

“In _our_ bedroom.” Felicity looked considerably paler as she said this. “Which will be...interesting. I mean, I’ve already slept with you once. Not that I remember it or anything because, hey, concussion or—wow, not slept with you _slept with you_ like that. Diggle, stop laughing, this is not funny. We were just sleeping!”

“Sure you were.” Diggle folded his arms over his chest and gave them such a smug look that Oliver swore on the spot to make their next training session as miserable as humanly possible. “Well, good luck being bedfellows on top of everything else.”

“On that note: good night, John,” Oliver said through clenched teeth.

“I mean, one of us could sleep on the floor if you’re really uncomfortable with it,” Felicity said after Diggle had stepped into the elevator. “I’ve slept in far stranger places.”

Oliver only shook his head. “Thea’s not always that big on knocking.”

“Well, that would end badly for her if we were, you know, actually married for real. Not saying that we’d screw like bunnies or anything, but she’d be bound to walk in on—I mean—” She stopped and sighed. “Did I really just say we’d screw like bunnies? I’m going to go somewhere else and not be part of this conversation before I dig myself any deeper.”

“I knew what you meant, if that helps,” Oliver said.

Felicity just gave him the tight-lipped, embarrassed smile that he knew well (and kind of found adorable), and ducked into the apartment. Oliver took another moment to compose himself in the hallway. Why hadn’t it crossed his mind that by having Thea around, he’d have to pretend to be married? Felicity had told him about her conversation with his mother, where Moira had asked them to keep up appearances for Thea’s sake. And that was a tolerable request when they were seeing Thea for a few hours a week, usually at her club.

But now, until she and Roy found a new place and Oliver took out the 503 Freaks, she was staying with them. They’d have to keep up the masquerade all the time. Affectionate touching, conversations in double-speak. Bed-sharing.

Bed-sharing in the same bed where he’d been dreaming of Felicity in various states of undress for several nights. And the worst part was that thanks to last night, when she’d been loopy on the concussion meds, a combined lack of sleep, and residual adrenaline, he knew several new things about Felicity. She talked in her sleep (which surprised him). She liked to burrow for any warm spot on the bed (which...had been him). And she was a cuddler (which was going to be his undoing), and he really wanted nothing more than to cuddle right back.

And she didn’t think of him as anything more than a business partner and a friend.

Felicity popped her head out the door. “Um, we kind of have early meetings tomorrow, so I can’t believe I’m asking this, but...are you coming to bed? Or even inside?”

Oliver gave her the best neutral smile he could muster. “Be right there,” he said.

This was going to be such a disaster.


End file.
